Solution For LAN Connection Between Windows XP And Windows 7

Posted: 22 Jun 2010 03:04 AM PDT

Many of you might have the problem sharing files and folders between Windows XP and Windows 7 OS. This is not so long tutorial but you can solve it just changing some values in your windows settings. By default Windows XP sets your Workgroup as MSHOME. While windows 7 feature WORKGROUP as your default workgroup you can easily get rid of this problem.

To connect Windows 7 OS with Windows XP, change the workgroup name of either one of the OS. I recommend you changing the workgroup name of Windows XP from MSHOME to WORKGROUP.

To change Workgroup in Windows XP, right click on my computer and click on properties.

In Computer name tab, check the workgroup. By default it is MSHOME. (In my case I named it WORKGROUP).

To change it, click on Change button.

A new window will pop up. There you can define your own workgroup name.

Now both of your OSes have same workgroup name.

Now in windows 7 PC, go to control panel > Network and Sharing Center.

At the left sidebar, click on Change advanced sharing settings.

In new window, Turn on Network discovery, File and printer sharing and Public folder sharing by clicking on the respective radio button.

Under File sharing connections, Click on Files sharing for devices that use 40- or 56- bit encryption. (Windows XP may not support 128 bit encryption) .

And turn of Password protected sharing.

Do the same for Public and Home or Network connection

Now you may run Home Network wizard (Control Panel>Setup Home Network) in windows XP. Then there you’ll have easy LAN connection. Make sure that workgroup name during wizard is setup to WORKGROUP not MSHOME

Now you can easily access files and folder and even internet and printers from network.

You can see the files in network.

Open Command Prompt From Desired Folder In Windows XP

Posted: 21 Jun 2010 01:12 AM PDT

If you are using Windows 7 or Vista, you might have noticed Open command window here. If you don’t know about it then hold down SHIFT button and right click on any folder, there you’ll see Open Command Window here. Clicking that link will instantly load command prompt window inside the folder that you’ve right clicked on.

It was for Windows Vista and later versions. Lower version of windows like windows 2000 and windows is not loaded up with such options. However you can manually tweak the registry values to get it in your windows XP.

In this tutorial I am going to teach you same.

Open Notepad by going to Run Command (Windows + R OR Start> Run), type “notepad”(without quotes).

Copy and paste the following code:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd]
@="Open Command from here"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd\command]
@="cmd /k \"cd %L\""

Now save it on desktop as “command.reg” (with quotes (see the image below).

Now you’ll have following shortcut icon.

Double click to open it. It will ask to add information in registry or not.

Click YES.

Again it will notify that registry has been modified. Click OK

Now try right clicking on any folder, you’ll see Open Command from here. Click it.

You’ll notice that command prompt windows load up in the directory that you’ve right clicked on.

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Know How Long You Have Been Running Your Computer

Posted: 20 Jun 2010 01:06 AM PDT

You might have never noticed your wastage of time when you are using computer, have you? You’ll never notice that you took 1 hour completely just to send your CV documents via mail to an organization. And there are also not such active and easily accessible tools to notify the time interval you’ve been using your computer since the windows startup.

However with Windows 7, you have this feature easily accessible in task manager. To see the length of time open up the task manager window.

You can either open task manager window by pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE and clicking on start task manager or by just going to RUN command and typing “taskmgr” (without quotes).

Go to the Performance tab and se the uptime timer. This is where you’ll see how long have you been online in your windows.

Besides this, there are also many third-party tools which help you to see the time period being online in your computer.

You got your up time of your desktop. But, how to know the time of your internet connection?

You can easily do this by following the steps below:

In the control panel open Network Connections. Identify the adapter which is actually connecting to the internet gateway and open it.

In my case it was Local Area Connection.

After you open it you’ll see the duration.

This is the time that you’ve been connecting to the internet.

Hope this was informative.

This is guest post by author of You Can Hack Blog and Hacktutors blog.

Recording Failed Login Attempts In Windows

Posted: 17 Jun 2010 02:56 PM PDT

This might be a good method to get rid of your system from being hacked or your files from being stolen from your friends. May be your friend might be trying to accessing your Windows account to get access to your secret documents and information. You may not want to change password regularly if you have the habit of forgetting. Well, in this tutorial I am going to teach you how to log such failed attempts to your account.

By default Windows does not keep record of success and failure attempts. However you can check if it’s active or not by following steps:

Right click on My Computer Icon > Manage.

For Windows Vista or Later,

Go to System Tools> Even Viewer > Windows Logs > Security

For Windows XP,

Go to System tools > Event viewer > Security

You can see here about the Successful and Failed Login Attempts.

I’ve the above screen in my Windows 7. But windows may not be logging your login attempts. Therefore you’ll need to activate it from Group Policy editor.

To enable success and failed attempts do the following:

Load up RUN command, type gpedit.msc . It will load Group Policy Editor Window.

At the left policy explorer, go to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > windows Settings> Security Settings> Local policies > Audit Logon Events .

At the right side of window, select ”Audit Policy Change “ and check on both ”Success” and ”Failure” Option.

Now press OK. You may now close the Group Policy Editor window.

Now Windows will be logging all your successful or failed login attempts.

To test if it works or not, create a test account, create password for it. Restart your PC. Try entering wrong password to your account few times. And again enter correct password. Window will load of.

Again right click on My Computer> Manage. Go to, System tools > Event viewer > Security

You’ll see the screen similar to this.

Double click on one of the failed attempts and it will show up the details.

Hope this was helpful tutorial to make your account more secure.

How To Shutdown A Computer With A Cell Phone/Email

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 12:53 PM PDT

In this tutorial, I am going to teach you how you can control your computer’s basic function using Microsoft Outlook and your Cell Phone Network. For this tutorial I am demonstrating how a user can shutdown, restart, hibernate their computer, just by sending an email from their phone.

To make this happen, all you need is Microsoft Outlook installed on the PC which you want to control from your cell phone

Now let’s begin with the tutorial.

First, you need the batch files to perform the Shutdown, Hibernate operation.

For example,

shutdown -r -t 10 -c “shutting down”

Copy this code and paste it in notepad, save it as shutdown.bat

Now open up Microsoft Outlook. I am assuming that you have already configured it for your Email and I am not going to teach you about setting mail in Microsoft Outlook. Now we will need to make it so that Outlook checks your inbox about every minute.

You can do this by going to Tools>Options. Then click on Mail Setup tab, and then, the Send/Receive button.

Make sure that the Schedule an automatic send/receive every… box is checked, and set the number of minutes to 1 or anytime you may like. Now you may close all of these dialog boxes.

Now go to Tools>Rules and Alerts. Click on E-mail Rules tab. In new window select Check messages when they arrive and click Next.

Now in next page, check on, on this machine only and with specific words in the subject.

After checking these two values, click on specific words underlined.

Search Text window will open, in the input field type the command that shuts down the PC. You can use any commands. For prevention of accidental execution I kept %shutdown% as a command. Click on Add button after you are done and click on OK.

Now click on Next.

In the next window check mark on start application. In the lower screen, click on application link.

Now you’ll be welcomed to your familiar file open window. Load all files. And select the batch file that you’ve created to shutdown your PC.

If everything went well you’ll see the screen similar to below:

Click on Next, again click on next (don’t choose any things in this step). And finally click on Finish button.

You’ll have %shutdown% alert shown in the E-mail Rules tab.

Now, when you send a message from your phone to your e-mail address with the Subject %shutdown% your computer will trigger shutdown.bat file and instantly executes the command in that batch file finally leading to shutdown the PC.

You can use any batch file to execute any command.

Hope you loved this tutorial.

Hide And Secure Your Folder Using Batch Script

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 09:06 AM PDT

Batch script helps to combine the DOS commands and execute it in complex and well arranged mode. Any command that can be executed or typed in DOS(Command prompt) window can be executed and programmed using batch script. In today’s post I am going to utilize the loophole of windows.

Windows unknowingly supplies the following virtual folders:

Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Dial-Up Networking.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}

Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

Inbox.{00020D75-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

My Computer.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Recycle Bin.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Network Neighborhood.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}

Desktop.{00021400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

Briefcase.{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}

Fonts.{BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}

Whenever you rename your folder with any of the above name and supply hidden and system folder attributes to it, it becomes completely invisible and inaccessible also in index-able by windows search.

For example rename NEW FOLDER to “’Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}” (without quotes).

Now open Command prompt and open the currently renamed New Folder. Set the attributes to +h +s +i

H=Hidden

S=System File

I=Un-indexed

To set attributes input the following syntax (see the image).

There you go, your folder is invisible now and inaccessible.

The above tutorial was just for demonstration. Now I am going to show you how you can arrange it in batch file so that you show and hide the folder just by double clicking a secret icon.

Follow and learn this step by step tutorial.

NOTE: Just copying and pasting codes won’t make you a good batch scripter, you’ll have to learn and modify the techniques used in them.

First of all let’s plan for the script. What the script must do is check if folder named “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}” exists or not. If it exists then we’ll have to direct our program such a way that it will prompt to show or hide the folder. Otherwise if the folder doesn’t exists let the program create new folder with any name (say “Secured”)

The above idea can be formulated in this way:

if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK

if NOT EXIST secured goto MDLOCKER

If there is no matching folder then as soon as the program is executed secured folder will be created. Where MDLOCKER is the separate case (block of code) to create new folder named secured. This time the folder named secured will be visible to everyone. The program will instantly close as creating new folder won’t take much time.

Now you can copy your secret files and documents in the folder named Secured.

After copying we’ll have to hide it and make it invisible. To do so, we’ll rename secured folder to Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} and supply the attributes to it. This is the main aim of this script.

ren secured "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

attrib +h +s +r +i "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

The above code is nothing but our friendly DOS command. When you execute it, you know what it will do.

Now we’ll have to code something to make it visible again. We can do this by reversing the above script. To remove attributes from the folder “-“ is used instead of “+”. And the Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} folder will be renamed to secured again.

attrib -i -r -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" secured

>

Now the folder it visible and accessible again.

Now you can make this system work with password. Especially the part when user wants to show the folder.

echo put in the key to Unlock the lock

set/p "pass=>password"

if NOT %pass%==123456 goto FAIL


The above block of code will create the input region for password. The second line confirms the password entry. If password is incorrect program will be directed to condition called FAIL. (You must define condition FAIL separately telling what should it do. You can either exit the program or prompt for second chance to input password.). If password is correct then proceeding codes will be executed.

You can see the properly arranged codes below:

cls

@ECHO OFF

title Folder Locker

if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK

if NOT EXIST secured goto MDLOCKER

:CONFIRM

echo Are you sure u want to Lock the secured(Y/S)

set/p "cho=>"

if %cho%==Y goto LOCK

if %cho%==y goto LOCK

if %cho%==n goto END

if %cho%==N goto END

echo Invalid choice.

goto CONFIRM

:LOCK

ren secured "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

attrib +h +s +r +i "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

echo secured locked

goto End

:UNLOCK

echo put in the key to Unlock the lock

set/p "pass=>password"

if NOT %pass%==123456 goto FAIL

attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" secured

echo secured Unlocked

goto End

:FAIL

echo Invalid keyword

goto UNLOCK

:MDLOCKER

md Secured

echo lock unlocked

goto End

:End

Copy it to notepad and save it in *.bat format.

NOTE: If you are directly copying the above code then be careful with the quotation marks. Replace all the “ and “ quotes to ".

Hope this tutorial was helpful

Best Alternative If Command Prompt Is Blocked

Posted: 12 Jun 2010 09:54 AM PDT

Most of the computers that have public access to people has Command Prompt blocked. This is for security reasons. Some time you may want to view hidden files in the public computer using command prompt (in case Folder options settings is not available). Lack of Command Prompt will be great loss of if you want to hack in to the networking or the same pc.

There are several tweaks and hacks to enable command prompt, but it is so much tricky. I am introducing you with a nice alternative for command prompt.

Have a look at the screenshot. It supports all the features that Command Prompt does. Even all the wild cards that can be used in DOS(Disk Operating System).

Download it from here:

http://www.gammadyne.com/gs.exe

It is actually a DOS Shell, which interpets user command same as in DOS.

Hope this post was a great help.

If you liked this post you may also like other post from suraj kayastha where he writes about various technology in You Can Hack Blog and Hacktutors.info

>> Creating Emergency Shortcut To Shutdown Windows >> How To Install XAMPP On Vista

Creating Emergency Shortcut To Shutdown Windows

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 03:09 PM PDT

This tutorial might be useful to those who hate to use mouse to shutdown windows. With the combination of three keys you can easily shutdown your computer. In this tutorial, I am going to show you, how you can create a shutdown shortcut key.

In desktop Right click>New>Shortcut

A create shortcut window will pop up. In the input field type, “shutdown –s” (without quotes), as shown in the figure. Remember that there is space between shutdown and -s

Click on next.

In next window, name anything you want your shortcut name to be. I named it shutdown. Alternatively you can have no name for shortcut. Deleting all the text and clicking on finish button won’t help you to create blank shortcut name.

To make blank shortcut name, Hold down ALT and type 0160 (i.e. ALT+0160). This will give a blank name. Click on finis button. You’ll have your name less shortcut menu ready.

Finally you’ll have shutdown shortcut icon similar to the image below:

Now all you need to is add shortcut keys to it. To do so, right click on the shortcut icon that you’ve just created. Choose properties.

By default shortcut key is set to none. Click on the shortcut key input field. Hold down CTRL and press any key you want. I used CTRL+ALT+S. Windows allows only the combination of CTRL+ALT to have a shortcut.

Now you are finally done.

Click on OK.

To test, Press CTRL+ALT+S (or any shortcut that you’ve given), following window will popup.

Press enter and sit back and relax until your system shuts down.

Hope this tutorial was a great help.

Actually, this article was guest post from the author of YouCanHack Blog and Hacktutors.info

How To Install XAMPP On Vista

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 06:26 PM PDT

If you’re looking easy way to develop and test websites locally, then you should try XAMPP server. You don’t need to connect to internet. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use just download, extract and start. This is complete step by step tutorial with images that will help you trough installation process ,also here you’ll find solutions for problems with XAMPP installation .

1) Go to apachefriends.org and download the package you want. I recommend Basic package .exe 51 MB

2) Install XAMP

3)After this will appear XAMP Control panel, other way to launch Control panel is to click on xampp-control in C/xamp/xamp.

4) Launch web browser as mozilla firefox , and type http://localhost in address bar

5)Choose language

6) If you installed XAMPP successfully , then you should see something as below

Problems with XAMPP installation:

1) Apache Won’t Start

If you try to start apache from the control panel but it won’t start.If you get a green “running” notification from the control panel, but it only appears for a second then goes away. Then , there is an enormous chance that port 80 (and possibly 3306) is in use by something else. For example some software as skype or similar can cause this problem .

To fix it, press crtl+alt+delete , start task manager, and end process which which causes problems

2) Missing or insufficient write permissions

Because of missing or insufficient write permissions in “C:\Program Files”, I recommend to use alternate folder for XAMPP (“C:\xampp” or “C:\meinverzeichnis\xampp”).

3) You can’t start services with the Control Panel

You can’t start services with the Control Panel: You have installed Apache/MySQL in “C:\xampp” as Windows service. But you can’t start/stop the services with the “XAMPP Control Panel” or can’t uninstall them.
Solution: Use the service management console from Windows or disable UAC.

To disable the UAC, use the program “msconfig”. In “msconfig” go to “Tools”, select “disable user account control” and verify your selection. Now you must restart Windows. At the same place, you can enable the UAC again.