In this tutorial we’ll show you how to crack and reset Windows password when you forget it or want to unlock a computer with an unknown password. There are tons of recovery tools available to bypass password, but here I’ll use the freeware Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD).

Ultimate Boot CD is a Linux-based bootable disc with loads of useful software for repairing or fixing almost any Windows problem. The built-in chntpw utility could be used to wipe windows passwords and view/edit the registry. Here’s how.

Note: Ultimate Boot CD is a freeware so don’t expect it to work with domain controllers. If you want to find a more powerful yet easy-to-use password recovery software, try the PCUnlocker Live CD.

How to Reset Forgotten Windows Password with Ultimate Boot CD?

Before getting started, you need to download the Ultimate Boot CD (about 588Mb) from its official website, and then burn it to a CD. With the CD you can follow the steps below to reset forgotten Windows 8/7/Vista/XP password:

1. Boot your locked computer from Ultimate Boot CD. On the boot menu of Ultimate Boot CD, choose Parted Magic and press Enter.

2. The next screen you have to select your graphic settings. Just select option 1 and press Enter to use the default settings.

3. Once you are presented with the Parted Magic desktop, go to the left bottom corner of the screen and choose System Tools -> Change Windows Password.

4. A new small window will open. It lists all Windows partitions detected on your local hard drive. Click on the correct drive and it will start the chntpw utility in the console.

5. You will now be presented with the chntpw Main Interactive Menu. Type 1 and press Enter.

6. This will list out all of the Windows users on the system. Type the name of your desired user and press Enter.

7. You will now be given the option to blank out the password, as well as several other ways to promote or unlock the user account. Type 1 and press Enter, it will remove the existing password.

8. If you don’t want to reset other user password, type ! and press Enter.

9. Type q and hit Enter at this point to quit the User Edit Menu.

10. You will then be asked to write the registry hive to disk. Type y to confirm and save your changes.

11. Now you can reboot, and you can log into your Windows account with a blank password. Once you’re logged in, you can go to the Control Panel to change your password to something else — something you can remember.

Since Windows 8, Windows Explorer has been renamed to File Explorer and updated in significant ways. One of the first things I do after installing a new Windows OS is to find the explorer. In this article we’ll show you 5 methods to access File Explorer in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Method 1: Open File Explorer with Win + E Shortcut

The easiest and quickest way to open File Explorer on all Windows is to press the Windows Key + E combination. Just press Win + E keyboard shortcut and you’ll see the File Explorer open where you can browse through all files on your hard drive.

Method 2: Open File Explorer from WinX Menu

You can bring up the WinX Menu (also known as Power User Menu) with your keyboard by pressing the Windows key and the X key together. This menu contains quick access to system utilities like the File Explorer, Control Panel, Command Prompt, Task Manager, Device Manager, and more.

Method 3: Open File Explorer from the Taskbar

By default, Windows 8.1 includes a File Explorer shortcut pinned to your taskbar. Simply click the shortcut icon on the taskbar and it will launch File Explorer immediately.

Method 4: Using the Search Charm

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Search (or if you’re using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, and then click Search), enter File Explorer in the search box, and then tap or click File Explorer.

Method 5: Add a Shortcut on the Desktop

However, most computer users have become accustomed to the way of opening the File Explorer by double-clicking the “My Computer” icon or “This PC” icon on the desktop.

To bring the “My Computer” icon back to your desktop, please refer to this article: Display My Computer Icon on Desktop in Windows 10.

PC Refresh and Reset has been available since the first release of Windows 8. In my previous post we’ve showed you how to reset your computer to factory default settings, or refresh your installation while keeping your settings and data files intact. One drawback is that you have to reinstall all your desktop applications after performing a PC reset or refresh.

If you have installed a lot of applications, or misplace the necessary installation discs or product keys, it can be an annoying and time-consuming task to get your computer back up and running. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to use the Windows built-in tool recimg.exe to create a custom image that contains all your desktop applications, so you won’t have to reinstall them after a refresh.

Part 1: Create A Custom Refresh Image in Windows 10 or Windows 8

A custom image will be a snapshot of the current state of Windows 10 / 8 and that will include all desktop applications that are currently installed on your computer. You should create a custom refresh image immediately after setting up your computer the way you want it so it’s clean and customized.

When you have your PC set up just the way you like it, here’s how to create your custom refresh image:

1. Press the Windows key + X to bring up the Power User menu, and then select Command Prompt (Admin). When the UAC warning appears, click the Yes button.
2. From the command prompt, run the recimg.exe tool to create a custom image file in your specified folder.

   recimg /CreateImage C:\CustomImage

   Enter the above command will create a new custom refresh image under the directory C:\CustomImage. If the folder doesn’t exist, it will create one for you.

3. It could take at least 30 minutes or more to finish creating the image, depending on how many applications you have installed. Once it’s done, you will see a new CustomRefresh.wim file created under your specified folder. And this .wim file will be set as the default refresh image and will be used next time when you use Refresh your PC operation.

Part 2: Refresh Your Windows 10 / 8 PC with Custom Image

1. From the Windows 10 or 8 login screen, hold down the SHIFT key and click on the Power icon visible on the bottom right of the screen, then click Restart option.

2. In a moment you’ll see the recovery screen. click on the Troubleshoot option.

3. Now click on the Refresh your PC option.

4. Click Next. The system will reboot and begin preparing to refresh your PC. After Refresh your PC, you will notice all your previous installed application are right back to where they were. But you might lose some personal settings from those applications.

Last but not least, have a look on your C: drive and you’ll find a new folder named Windows.old, contains all the program files and Windows directory from your previous installation. If any of your applications had additional information stored in their installation directory, you can recover it from this folder.

The Windows.old folder could take up a large amount of disk space. Once you’re sure you don’t need anything from it, you can delete it to reclaim free disk space. But you might receive the “Access denied” error when you try to delete this folder. In that case, you need to take ownership of that folder using the freeware TakeOwnershipPro before deleting it.

Have you ever worried that a hacker could figure out your login password through a password-guessing attack? Here’s how you can prevent this by temporarily locking your account when the wrong password is entered several times.

Account lockout threshold is basically a feature of Windows that allows you to lock your user account after a number of failed login attempts. In this article we’ll explain two methods of setting the account lockout threshold to limit the number of failed login attempts in Windows 8 and 7.

Tips: If your account is locked out permanently and couldn’t login with any user account, you can unlock your system with PCUnlocker Live CD.

Method 1: Using Local Group Policy Editor

1. To open the Local Group Policy Editor, press the Windows key + R and type gpedit.msc in the Run box.
2. In the left pane, navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Account Policies, and click Account Lockout Policy.
3. In the right pane, you will see three policy settings, named Account lockout duration, Account lockout threshold, and Reset account lockout counter after.

   Double-click Account lockout threshold and set the number of invalid login attempts you like between 0 and 999, click OK.

4. Windows will prompt you to set suggested settings for Account lockout duration and the length of time to Reset account lockout counter. You can either click OK to choose the default value or change it later.

Method 2: Using the Command Prompt

However, the above method will not work on Home editions of Windows as Group Policy Editor is only available in Ultimate or Pro version of Windows. Instead, you can change the account lockout threshold directly from Command Prompt. Here’s how:

1. First you need to open an elevated Command Prompt. In Windows 7, right-click on the Command Prompt in the Start Menu and select Run as Administrator. In Windows 10 or 8, just press the Windows key + X and select Command Prompt (Admin).
2. In the Command Prompt, run the command net accounts /lockoutthreshold:(0-999) and you can change the account lockout threshold. For example, I want the system to automatically lock out my account after the password is entered incorrectly 3 times, I would type in this command below and press Enter.

   net accounts /lockoutthreshold:3

3. Now, you need to set how long the account will be locked when the password is entered incorrectly. In this example, we set the computer to lock for 30 minutes. But you can choose less or more (between 0 and 99999), depending on your needs.

   net accounts /lockoutduration:30

   If you set the account lockout duration to 0, then a locked out user account will be locked out until an administrator manually unlocks that locked-out account.

4. Once you’re finished, you can run the net accounts command to review your settings.

Conclusion

When the password is entered incorrectly a couple of times, you are restricted from further login attempts for a certain time period. After limiting the number of failed login attempts in Windows, it will prevent hackers from being able to guess your password by entering every possible password combinations continuously.

When you perform a custom Windows installation or upgrade Windows to a newer version, the old Windows folder is renamed to Windows.old in case you’d like to revert the upgrade. Windows 8 or 10 users might also have seen the Windows.old folder after performing a PC refresh.

Windows.old contains not only your old Windows installation files, but also your old Documents, Settings and Programs. The folder is usually gigantic in size and can take up considerable space in your system partition. So if you are pretty sure that you no longer need any data from Windows.old then it would be a wise decision to delete it.

Unfortunately, you can’t remove the Windows.old folder by simply pressing the Delete key because your user account doesn’t have ownership of the folder. Here’s how to take ownership all files and subfolders in Windows.old, so you can then delete the whole folder to reclaim some space.

How to Delete the Windows.old Folder?

1. Download and install the freeware TakeOwnershipPro on your local computer.
2. Start the TakeOwnershipPro program and drag the C:\Windows.old folder to the program. Tick the “Include subfolders and files” box.

3. Click Take Ownership. The program will begin to take ownership of all files and subfolders in the Windows.old folder. It could take you one or two minutes, depending on number of files and folders it contains.
4. Once it is done, you can then delete the Windows.old folder without any permission issue.

It’s that simple. Deleting the Windows.old folder can save you quite a large amount of hard disk space and it will not affect the present state of the new OS.

There are many folder locking programs out there that allow you to password protect and set different access rights to your files. But most of these programs don’t encrypt your files at all. Someone can easily bypass this protection to access your files by booting your PC with a Linux or WinPE Live CD, or removing your hard drive and connecting it to another PC.

If you’re a bit more conscious of privacy, encrypting your files is a better solution. Lock My Folders is an on-the-fly encryption software to lock and encrypt all kinds of pictures, videos, documents, files and folders. In this article we’ll explain how to use this program to create an encrypted and locked folder in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP.

Part 1: Set Password

Click here to download the Lock My Folders application and install it on your computer. The first time you launch the program, it will prompt you to set a master password that will be used to encrypt your files later on.

Enter a password that you can remember as you’ll need it to open and use the program next time.

Part 2: Create An Encrypted Folder

To create an encrypted folder, click on Add button from within the Lock My Folders program.

In the popup window, type your desired folder name and specify the location where you would like your new secure folder to be created. Click OK. You can create a secure folder in your local hard drive or USB flash drive.

Now your secure folder should have been created. You can then copy all your private photos, documents & videos into this folder, or create or edit a confidential file in the secure folder. All your files stored in this folder will be encrypted automatically on the fly.

Part 3: Manage Your Encrypted Folders

With the steps above you can create as many secure folders as you want. You can lock your secure folder after you finish working with it. Just right-click on the secure folder and select “Lock My Folder“.

When a secure folder is locked, everyone couldn’t access all files in it without knowing your password. You can also set your locked secure folders to be invisible from Windows Explorer and Command Prompt, by following these steps:

1. Start the Lock My Folders program.
2. Click on the Options icon from the top right corner of the main screen, and then select Settings.
3. Check the “Hide the secure folders when they are locked” box.

If you shutdown or restart your PC, all your secure folders will be locked out automatically.

The next time you need to open or access the secure folder, you need to unlock it firstly. Right-click on the secure folder and select “Unlock My Folder“.

The program will ask you to enter your password. Upon successfully verifying the password, the program will open the secure folder in Windows Explorer.

If you need to reinstall your operating system or transfer your secure folders to another machine, just backup the secure folders to an external storage device and you can then import them to the Lock My Folders program again. It’s that simple!

SmartScreen Filter is a useful security feature introduced since Windows 8. When trying to download or run a specific program, SmartScreen might show you a warning that “it is not commonly downloaded and could harm your computer“, “running this program might put your PC at risk” or “This unsafe download was blocked by SmartScreen Filter“.

If a program is already used by a reasonably large number of people, it will be considered to be safe and SmartScreen will allow you to download or install it without warnings. If the program is rarely downloaded, SmartScreen will warn that it might not be a safe choice. If you are sure that the downloaded program is safe, you can continue by clicking Run Anyway button.

This can be annoying, when downloading less popular applications. SmartScreen is not an anti-virus software and it won’t scan your PC for threats at all. SmartScreen may occasionally prevent a legitimate application from running. If you don’t like that feature, here’s how to disable it.

How to Turn Off SmartScreen Filter in Windows 10 or 8?

1. Press the Windows key + X to bring up the Power User menu, and then click Control Panel.
2. After opening the Control Panel, select System and Security option as it has been shown in the image below.

3. Now select the Action Center option, or click on Security and Maintenance in Windows 10.

4. In the left pane, click on the Change SmartScreen settings link.

5. Now SmartScreen Settings window will appear. You will see three options there. Check the last option
   “Don’t do anything (Turn Off Windows SmartScreen)” and press OK to disable SmartScreen.

6. Now you are done with it. SmartScreen is disabled now. It will no more irritate you until you re-enable it.

Windows 8 introduces three new ways of authenticating yourself other than just using a traditional password. Now you can use a PIN code, Picture Password, as well as Microsoft account for logging into your computer. From the Windows login screen, you can switch between these sign-in options.

However, in some situations you might not be allowed to create a PIN or Picture Password, or the sign-in options of PIN and Picture Password are not shown up at Windows login screen. If you’re facing such problem, here is how to fix it.

1: Picture Password / PIN code disabled after joining a domain

Domain users are not allowed to sign in with a PIN by default. After joining to a domain or adding an Exchange email account, Picture Password or PIN authentication might be not available. However, you can easily turn on the Picture Password / PIN sign-in options by modifying the group policy:

1. Press the Windows key + R keyboard combination to open a Run box, then type gpedit.msc and press Enter.
2. When the Group Policy editor opens, navigate to the following key:
   Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon
3. On the right pane, double-click on the “Turn on PIN sign-in” option. Set it to Enabled, and click Apply.
4. Double-click on the “Turn off picture password sign-in” option and set it to Disabled. Click Apply.

5. After restarting the system, you should be able to create and use Picture Password and PIN sign-in.

Of course, this method will only be useful in a domain environment, in which case you could assign this group policy setting to an OU in Active Directory.

2: PIN sign-in option disabled after entering PIN Code wrong many times

If you have entered the wrong PIN too many times, the PIN sign-in option will immediately disappear from Windows logon screen. There is no other way to get the PIN code back to work, except that you can still login with other sign-in options, delete the existing PIN code and set a new one.

If you couldn’t also log on with your local / Microsoft account, this will essentially lock you out of your own computer. In this situation, you need to use some third-party boot disks such as PCUnlocker to unlock your Windows local / Microsoft account.

3: Disable the policy “Do not display last user name”

It is good practice to enable the local security policy “Interactive Logon: Do Not Display Last User Name” in Windows. Despite this setting can improve the security of your computer, it will also cause the Picture Password and PIN sign-in options disappeared at the Windows logon screen.

To bring the Picture Password / PIN sign-in options back, you need to disable that security policy again. Here’s how:

1. Press the Windows key + R keyboard combination to open a Run box, then type secpol.msc and press Enter.
2. In the left pane of Local Security Policy window, navigate to Local Policies -> Security Options.
3. On the right hand side, double-click on the “Interactive Logon: Do Not Display Last User Name” setting. Now switch the radio button from Enabled to Disabled, then click Apply.

4. Restart your computer and the Picture Password / PIN code sign-in options will be back.

If you’re running a version of Windows 8 that doesn’t come with the Group Policy Editor, use this registry trick to disable that security policy:

1. Press the Windows key + R keyboard combination to open a Run box, then type regedit and press Enter.
2. In the left pane of Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
3. On the right hand side, double-click on dontdisplaylastusername and then modify the value to 0.

4. You also need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. That’s it!

Windows To Go is a new feature introduced since Windows 8, which allows you to install and run Windows 8 from a USB drive. It’s officially available only for Enterprise edition of Windows 8, but using the freeware ISO2Disc you can create a Windows To Go USB drive with any edition of Windows 8, 8.1 or 10.

Requirements:

• A USB thumb drive (USB 3.0 is preferrable) or external USB hard drive with at least 16GB of space.
• Windows 8, 8.1 or Windows 10 ISO image
• The free ISO burning tool: ISO2Disc

How to Create A Windows To Go USB Drive?

1. Click here to download the latest version of ISO2Disc and install it on your computer.
2. Plug the USB drive into your PC. Note the steps below will wipe out the entire USB drive, including all partitions! If there is important data, backup now before continuing.
3. Launch the ISO2Disc application. Click on Browse to select your Windows 8/8.1/10 ISO image.

4. Click on Burn to USB Flash Drive and then select your attached USB drive. Make sure the correct USB drive is selected (any content on the USB drive will be wiped during the creation process so this is a vital step).
5. If you’re going to use the Windows To Go drive with GPT partition scheme, select “GPT (required for UEFI boot)“. MBR partition scheme should be selected if your target PC can boot in Legacy BIOS or CSM mode only.
6. Under the Bootdisk Type, there are two options: Create Windows installation USB and Windows to Go (install Windows to USB). Select the second option as we need to make a Windows To Go USB drive.

7. Click on Start Burn, you’ll see “Your USB drive will be erased” warning. Click OK to prepare the Windows To Go USB drive.

   This is the longest part so be patient. The process only took 15 minutes for me, even though I used an external hard drive with a slower USB 2.0 connection. But it could take more than one hour if a USB 2.0 thumb drive is used.

8. Once you’ve created a Windows To Go USB drive, you can bring it to boot up any computers. The first time you boot from a Windows To Go USB drive, you’ll have to go through the same first-time setup process you’d see after installing Windows on a computer normally. That’s it!

Safe Mode is a special Windows boot mode used for troubleshooting and system diagnostics. Since Windows 8, there is no straight-forward method to access the Safe Mode and the traditional F8 key also doesn’t work any longer. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to add the Safe Mode option to Boot Menu in Windows 10/8.1/8.

How to Add Safe Mode to Boot Menu in Windows 10 or 8?

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt by pressing the Windows key + X and then selecting “Command Prompt (Admin)“.
2. Enter the following command or copy and paste the command in the Command Prompt window, and press the Enter key.
   bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Safe Mode"

   This command clones the current OS boot settings to a new boot entry named “Safe Mode”. Close the Command Prompt after the command above is executed.

3. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box. Type msconfig and press OK.
4. In the System Configuration window, click on the Boot tab, select the newly-created boot entry “Safe Mode” from the list. Check the box labelled Safe boot (under Boot options), and set the Timeout to 30 seconds.

5. Click OK, then apply changes. Restart your PC and the Safe Mode option would now appear in the boot selection menu.

   The boot screen menu will automatically disappear after 30 seconds to boot into Windows. Note that, when you select the Safe Mode option, your PC will reboot once again and bring you to Safe Mode automatically.

In 64-bit operating systems starting with Windows Vista, Windows will load a kernel-mode driver only if the driver is signed. It was designed to prevent unsigned device drivers (or kernel modules in general) from being loaded and executed. After installing an unsigned device driver, it will always result in a blue screen of death during the startup process.

The problem is that many devices ship with unsigned drivers. Today, we’ll show you 2 methods to disable Driver Signature Enforcement in Windows 10, 8, 7 (64-bit) so you can then install / load unsigned drivers without problems.

Option 1: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement Completely

1. Open a Command Prompt with admin privileges. In Windows 10 or 8, just press the Windows key + X and then select “Command Prompt (Admin)”.
2. Type in the following command and press Enter.
   bcdedit /set testsigning on

   You should receive “The operation completed successfully” message.

3. Close the Command Prompt and restart your computer. From now on, you will be able to install or run any unsigned driver without problems.

   If you need to enable the Driver Signature Enforcement again, run this command instead:
   bcdedit /set testsigning off

Option 2: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement Once

If you don’t want to use the method above to permanently disable Driver Signature Enforcement, here is a solution for you to temporary turn off Driver Signature Enforcement to install unsigned driver:

1. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box. Type shutdown /r /o and hit Enter.
2. Windows informs you that you are about to be signed off. Click Close.
3. Once your Computer has rebooted you will need to choose the Troubleshoot option.

4. Then head into Advanced options.

5. In the Advanced Options window, choose Startup Settings.

6. Click the Restart button on the Startup Settings screen to reboot your computer again.

7. After restart in Startup Settings windows, press the F7 key on your keyboard to select “Disable driver signature enforcement“.

8. Your PC will then reboot. Proceed to install your unsigned drivers. During the installation procedure, Windows will inform you that can’t verify the publisher of this driver software. Just ignore the warning message and choose “Install this driver software anyway” to complete the installation.

Keep in mind that after the next restart, Driver Signature Enforcement will be automatically enabled again to prevent new drivers from being installed, but Windows will keep using any unsigned drivers you’ve already installed.

Have you ever installed a program that you only needed for offline use, but it kept on trying to connect to the Internet? Or need to stop a program from gathering your personal information and sending them out to the Internet? With Windows Firewall you can easily block any program of your choice from connecting to the Internet.

How to Block A Program from Accessing The Internet?

1. To get started we need to open up Windows Firewall. One quick way to do this is from the Control Panel. Just click the Windows Firewall icon.

2. On Windows Firewall window, click on the Advanced settings link.

3. Here you can see all your Firewall rules: Inbound or Outbound. When it comes down to it I think Outbound rules are usually enough for most applications. When Outbound connections are blocked, this means that the application can’t send any of your data to the Internet.
4. Right-click on Outbound Rules from the tree at the left, and then select “New Rule…”

5. Select the Program as the rule type and click Next.

6. Select the “This program path:” option and then click on Browse to locate the program which you want to stop from accessing the Internet.

7. Select the “Block the connection” option and click Next.

8. When comes to the Profile tab, select all of the available boxes: Domain, Private, and Public.

9. Give your new rule a name whatever you like. Click on Finish.

10. In the Name column, your newly blocked program will be listed. In the Action column, you’ll see that your newly created rule is set to Block.

    Repeat the same steps to block as many programs as you want from accessing the Internet.

Windows Store is integrated into Windows 8/8.1/10 that provides access to thousands of free and paid apps. If your computer is also shared among other individuals, it makes sense to turn off the Windows Store. In this post we’ll show you two options to disable the Windows Store in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10.

Option 1: Disable Windows Store with Group Policy

1. Press the Windows + R key combination to bring up a Run box. Type gpedit.msc and hit Enter to open the Local Group Policy Editor.
2. Navigate to the following location:
   User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Store
3. On the right hand side you will see a setting named “Turn off the Store application“. Double-click on it to open the Settings box, select Enabled and click Apply.

4. Now you will need to enforce the updated policy to take effect on your PC, to do this press the Windows + R key combination, when the Run box open, run this command:

   gpupdate /force

5. Now you’ve successfully disabled the Windows Store. When you try to open Windows Store again, you’ll receive the following error message:
   

   Windows Store isn’t available on this PC. Contact your system administrator for more information

Option 2: Disable Windows Store with Registry Trick

If you are not using Windows 8 Professional or Enterprise you will not have access to the Group Policy Editor. Instead you can disable the Windows Store through this registry trick:

1. Press the Windows + R key combination to bring up a Run box. Type regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to the following registry key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsStore

   Create a new DWORD value in the WindowsStore key. Name it RemoveWindowsStore and give it a value of 1. If the WindowsStore key does no exist, create it firstly.

3. Restart your computer. The next time you try launch the Windows Store, you will notice it is disabled. If you want to re-enable the Windows Store later, just change the value of RemoveWindowsStore to 0.

How to disable the password complexity policy for Windows Server Core installation? If your Windows system comes with a GUI interface, you change the password policy from within the Group Policy Editor, but the steps are still a bit complicated for a Windows domain controller.

In this tutorial we’ll show you a quick yet simple way to change local / domain password policy from the Command Prompt. This method works with all versions of Windows, including Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and Windows Server 2012 (R2) / 2008 (R2) / 2003.

How to Change Local/Domain Password Policy from Command Prompt?

If your computer is a domain controller, follow the steps below and you can change the default domain password policy. To change the local password policy on a domain controller, you must boot your server in Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) and then perform the steps below:

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt. If you’ve forgotten the local or domain administrator password and couldn’t log on, try the PCUnlocker bootdisk for bypassing the password.
2. Type the following command and hit Enter:
   secedit.exe /export /cfg C:\secconfig.cfg

   This will dump the local policy or domain policy for the system, including account policies, audit policies, and so on.

3. Open the C:\secconfig.cfg file with your text editor. For Windows Server Core, you can type notepad.exe in the Command Prompt. When Notepad launches, click the File -> Open menu to open C:\secconfig.cfg.
4. Now you can view and edit all of the relevant policies as shown below. In this example, we’ll disable the password complexity policy. So we replace PasswordComplexity = 1 to PasswordComplexity = 0, and change the value of MinimumPasswordLength to 0.

5. When done, save your changes. To load the edited file as your new policy configuration, use the following command:
   secedit.exe /configure /db %windir%\securitynew.sdb /cfg C:\secconfig.cfg /areas SECURITYPOLICY

6. The new password policy will apply to all password changes and new password. After disabling the password complexity policy, you should be able to change Windows account password to whatever you like.

A password reset disk is essentially a USB drive that contains a small file: userkey.psw, which can be used to change your password from Windows logon screen. But the catch is that you have to create a password reset disk while you’re logged in. If you’ve already forgotten your password, it’s too late.

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to bypass Windows 8, 7 and Vista password with a bootable media – PCUnlocker Live CD, which can be created on a spare computer after you forgot Windows password. PCUnlocker can be used to reset the password of any user on any Windows machine, while a password reset disk can only reset the password of the account for which it was created.

How to Bypass Windows 8, 7 and Vista Password without A Reset Disk?

If you don’t have a PCUnlocker Live CD, you can create it on any Windows computer that you still have full access to. Download the CD image of PCUnlocker and burn it to a blank CD (or USB thumb drive) with the freeware ISO2Disc.

Put the PCUnlocker Live CD in the CD drive of your locked computer. Once booted to the PCUnlocker program, it will detect all the partitions which contain a valid Windows installation.

Select the SAM file for the Windows installation whose password you need to bypass, it will list all the user accounts stored in your selected SAM file. If you’re running PCUnlocker on a dual-bot machine, there should be two SAM files and make sure you choose the desired one.

Choose a user account and click on “Reset Password”. This program will wipe the password, enable/unlock the account, and promote it to an Administrator if it’s a standard or limited account.

Take the CD out of the CD drive and reboot the computer. You can then log back into Windows without typing password. So this is how you can bypass the password for any version of Windows.

Unlike earlier versions of Windows, you can’t install Windows 10 or 8 without a product key. Microsoft has made it compulsory to provide a product key before proceeding with the installation. But what if you want to install and trial Windows 8 before purchasing? Luckily there is a workaround to bypass the product key screen during Windows installation.

Note: Skipping the product key doesn’t means you get a fully activated Windows installation. Once you skip the product key, your Windows installation will be limited to a 30 days trial period and you will have to purchase a genuine product key in order to activate your Windows 10/8 installation.

How to Install Windows 10 or 8 without Product Key?

1. Follow this guide to download a official copy of Windows 10 / 8.1 directly from Microsoft’s servers.
2. After you’ve downloaded the Windows 10 or 8 ISO image, burn it to a USB flash drive with the freeware ISO2Disc. It is easiest if you’ve created USB installation media, as you can later edit the files directly on your USB flash drive. If you created an ISO file, you’ll have to modify the files inside the ISO image before burning it to disc.
3. Open your USB installation drive and navigate to the /sources folder. Look for the ei.cfg file and open it in a text editor such as Notepad. If the file doesn’t already exist, create a new text document and rename it as ei.cfg.
4. Copy and paste the following text into the ei.cfg file and then save it. Make sure that anything that already exists in the file should be cleared first.

   [EditionID]
Professional
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
1

5. That’s it. Now go ahead and boot from your USB installation media. This time you will see a Skip button when you are prompted to enter a product key during Windows Setup.

Once you have successfully installed Windows 10/8 through this method, you will then have 30 days to activate your Windows installation.

During Windows installation, you can skip the product key screen to continue installing the OS for evaluation purpose. By default, you can use it for 30-day trial period. If your trial has run out before you’ve decided whether or not to purchase a license key, you can extend the trial period from 30 days to 120 days.

In this article we’ll show you how to renew the trial period once it has expired with just a simple command. This method works regardless of what edition of Windows you’re running, including Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and Windows Server 2012, 2008.

How to Extend Windows 10/8/7/Vista Trial Period from 30 to 120 Days?

1. Open up a Command Prompt in Administrator mode.
2. Type slmgr.vbs –rearm at the Command Prompt, and press Enter. In Windows 10 or 8.1, use slmgr.vbs /rearm instead.
3. After a couple of seconds it will show you the message window that the command has completed successfully.
4. Restart your computer and you can use the trial version for another 90 days for free. If you want to enjoy exact 120 days, run above mentioned command on the last day when your Windows trial period is going to expire.
5. You can check how many days are left in your trial period, by running slmgr.vbs -dli in the Command Prompt.

If we forget the Admin password for a Windows virtual machine running on Parallels Desktop, is there an easy way to reset it? With PCUnlocker you can reset lost Windows password and regain access to your Parallels VM. This is considerably faster than destroying and rebuilding your VM.

This tutorial will take you step by step through resetting a Windows login password inside a Parallels Desktop virtual machine running on your Mac.

How to Reset Windows VM Password on Parallels Desktop?

1. Click here to download and save the PCUnlocker self-extracting Zip file on to your Mac. Once the download is complete, double-click on the .zip file and Archive Utility should appear and automatically extract your files. Open the folder you extracted to and you can see a CD image: pcunlocker.iso.

2. Start Parallels Desktop but do not start your virtual machine. Right-click on your Windows virtual machine and choose Configure.
3. In the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog, choose the Hardware tab and select CD/DVD 1. Make sure that Connected option is checked. From the “Connected to:” drop-down list, select “Choose an image file” and locate the pcunlocker.iso file you downloaded in step 1.

4. Go to Hardware tab and click Boot Order. Move CD/DVD to the first place in the Boot order.

5. Start your Windows virtual machine and it will boot directly to the PCUnlocker program which lists all user accounts on your Windows system.
6. Select a user whose password you would like to reset and click on “Reset Password” button to clear the user’s password. The program should now alert you that the password was cleared.

7. You can now power off your virtual machine. Be sure to go back to the Virtual Machine Configuration and change the boot order back to hard disk. Start the VM and you should be able to log into Windows without typing a password!

Besides resetting Parallels Desktop password, you can also use PCUnlocker to bypass the passwords for Windows virtual machines running in Parallels Workstation, VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, Virtual PC, ESX/ESXi, and other virtualization software.

BitLocker is a useful hard drive encryption feature in Ultimate and Enterprise versions of Windows 8/7/Vista, which allows you to encrypt an entire fixed drive. If you try to enable BitLocker on an old computer without TPM chip, you will receive one of the following error messages:

“A compatible Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Security Device must be present on this computer, but a TPM was not found. Please contact your system administrator to enable BitLocker.”

or

“This device can’t use a Trusted Platform Module. Your administrator must set the “Allow BitLocker without a compatible TPM” option in the “Require additional authentication at startup” policy for OS volumes.”

However, not all computers include TPM and you can’t add a TPM chip to a computer. Luckily there is a group policy that allows you to configure BitLocker to work without a TPM chip. Here’s how:

1. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box, type gpedit.msc and hit Enter to open the Group Policy Editor.
2. Go to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > BitLocker Drive Encryption > Operating Systems. Double-click on “Require additional authentication at startup“.

3. In the radio buttons at the top, select Enabled. Check the box marked “Allow BitLocker without a compatible TPM“.

4. Click OK and close out of Local Group Policy Editor.
5. Now we will need to force the policy to take effect on your PC, to do this press the Windows + R key combination. When the Run box opens, type gpupdate /force and hit Enter.

Now you can use BitLocker to encrypt your system drive without having a TPM chip in your computer.

Can I install Windows 10 with a local account as now a Microsoft account is required? When installing Windows 10 or 8.1, you will not see an option to create a local account by default, and instead you have to log in to your Microsoft Account or be asked to create a new one. Here’s a workaround to skip the Microsoft account sign-in so you can install Windows 10/8.1 with a local account.

How to Install Windows 10 or 8.1 with Local Account?

1. Start the installation of Windows 10/8.1 as you would usually do, and follow on-screen instruction to proceed.
2. When you’re prompted to sign in to your Microsoft account, click on “Create a new account“.

3. On the screen where you’re required to enter information to create a Microsoft account, scroll down to the bottom, and click on “Sign in without a Microsoft account“.

4. Enter your desired user name, password and password hint for the local account to be used to login to Windows. Click on Finish to continue the installation as usual.