Archive for the ‘Free Software’ category

How to Fix ‘Access Denied’ Error When Delete A File

September 27th, 2012

Have you ever tried to delete a file and you receive the “Access Denied” error message? This error is quite common and you’re not alone. The problem can occur due to many different reasons, maybe the file is being used by some other programs, you do not have administrator privileges, or maybe you are trying to delete a file on a write-protected disk.

You know how frustrating such error message can be. Fortunately, there is a small freeware that can help to fix the access denied error so you can delete your files without any hassle – Unlocker. This software lets you see which process is holding the lock on the file/folder and then helps you unlock it. After Installing this software you can simply right click the file/folder that is giving “Access is Denied” or “File May Be In Use” errors and then click on Unlocker.

A new window will now pop-up showing the processes as shown below. Now you can either unlock all of the processes or kill the process.

On the left of the ‘Kill Process’ button there is a drop-down menu where you can select Copy, Move, Rename, or Delete functions for a locked file.

This program is useful for the following types of errors:

  • Cannot delete file: Access is denied
  • There has been a sharing violation.
  • The source or destination file may be in use.
  • The file is in use by another program or user.
  • Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Download Unlocker Now!

How to Reset Windows Password with Ubuntu for Free

September 3rd, 2012

Windows has an in-built option to create password reset disk to log into system in case a user forgets the Windows account password. However, in a worst case scenario, where you don’t have a password reset disk nor have access to any administrator account, Ubuntu Live disk may help. In this article, we will guide you through step-by-step procedure of resetting Windows user account password.

While Ubuntu Live CD is widely used to troubleshoot PC problems, you can use it to reset Windows user account passwords as well. The process requires creating a Ubuntu Live CD or Live USB, and then booting it to gain full system access for resetting forgotten Windows password.

Note:  This method is free and easy for Linux users. For Windows users, we recommend you to try the Reset Windows Password bootable utility – Which is based on Windows PE and you can use it to easily reset forgotten Windows password on Windows 8/7/Vista/XP/2008/2003/2000.

Step 1: Create a Bootable Ubuntu Live USB

To get started, grab Universal USB Installer, and then download Ubuntu 10.10 (32-bit or 64-bit) from here.

Launch Universal USB Installer, select Ubuntu 10.10 from drop-down menu, and then click Browse to select the Ubuntu ISO file. Now, select the USB drive letter and set the persistent file size.

Once all settings are in place, click Create to begin creating a bootable Ubuntu Live USB.

Step 2: Boot from Ubuntu Live USB

After the Ubuntu Live USB is created, reboot your PC and access computer BIOS by pressing ESC, F2, F10, F9 or other system defined key. Head over to Boot menu and set USB/Removable Hard disk as first boot option. Once boot priority is changed, save the changes and reboot the system. From boot menu, choose Run Ubuntu from this USB option to load Ubuntu 10.10.

Step 3: Install Chntpw

Once your booted into Ubuntu, hit Ctrl + Alt + T to open a Terminal window. I know this may seem a little scary but it is actually quite easy. Once this window is open, simply type sudo apt-get install chntpw and hit Enter. It should download and install the program without needing further assistance. Once it’s finished and your back at the regular prompt, simply type exit and hit Enter. Now you should be back on the Desktop.

Step 4: Reset Windows Password

Now, you need to mount the hard disk partition where Windows is installed. You will be able to access all the removable drives and hard disk partitions from Places menu.

Open all partitions to find the drive with Windows folder. When you find it, make a note of the drive’s label that appears in the menu bar of the file browser.

Once the drive with Windows folder is mounted, open Applications menu from panel, and select Terminal from Accessories menu.

In Terminal window, enter cd /media command, and then list all mounted media drives with ls command.

Once listed, you have to navigate to drive that contains Windows folder. Enter the following command to do so.
cd <hard drive label>

Since we have to make changes to Security Accounts Manager (SAM), which is residing in Windows/System32/config folder. Enter:
cd Windows/System32/config

Once you’re in config folder, use chntpw tool to read Windows user account credentials and make changes to saved passwords. Enter following command to run chntpw tool.
sudo chntpw SAM

The chntpw shows all the configured Windows user accounts with their current status.

It presents 4 different Windows user account tweaking options at the bottom, including clear the admin account password, replace current password/edit password, promote standard user, and unlock locked user accounts. You can reset Windows admin user account password by pressing ’1′ followed by ‘Y’,  However, to edit the admin password, press ’2′, enter a new password, hit enter and then press Y to change the password.

The sudo chntpw SAM command can only make changes to Windows admin account password. If you want to change standard user’s password, use the switch –u followed by correct user account name.
sudo chntpw –u <user account name> SAM

Once you’ve changed the user account password, reboot your system, and plug out Ubuntu Live USB. If you’ve just reset the admin password, Windows will not prompt you to enter the password. However, if you changed the password, use the new password to log in to Windows.

How can I Find Wireless Password

August 28th, 2012

How do I find out my wireless network password? It’s stored on one computer and automatically logs me in when I turn it on, but I can’t remember what it is and someone at my house wants to connect.

When connecting to a wireless network or Wi-Fi connection which is encrypted with WEP, WPA or WPA2, Windows will offer to save and remember the wireless password so that Windows can automatically authenticate with the router or gateway to login and connect to the wireless network in future.

Chance are even the wireless password is automatically stored by Windows, some users may not even bother to remember the password, until when users reformat or reinstall Windows, or add a new PC to your wireless network.

In any case where you can’t remember or lost the wireless password for a wireless connection, and unable to get the wireless password from the router or gateway, the freeware utility, WirelessKeyView can help to find wireless key or password used in WEP, WPA or WPA2 encryption protocol stored in local computer by the ‘Wireless Zero Configuration’ service of Windows XP and by the ‘WLAN AutoConfig’ service of Windows Vista.

Download WirelessKeyView

Although the wireless password is saved and stored in local Windows computer, Windows OS does not provide an easy way to recover, find or display the wireless password on screen, in plain text and not hidden as asterisk, until Windows 7. In Windows 8 and Windows 7, you can easily find wireless password without using any third-party software.

How to Recover Wireless Password on Windows 8, 7

ISO2Disc 1.02 Released

August 14th, 2012

We just released an upgrade for ISO2Disc program – a free CD/DVD/USB burning software. The old version has problem of creating a bootable USB drive in Windows 64-bit operating system. The new version 1.02 has fixed the problem. You can Click here to download the latest version of ISO2Disc.

Mount ISO Image to Virtual CD/DVD Drive

August 13th, 2012

Mounting ISO images in your OS is a great way for you to view and run the content of the disk image without having to burn it into a CD/DVD. While Mac and Linux come with native support to mount ISO images in the system, Windows, regardless which version you are using, doesn’t come with this feature. In this article, we will show you how to mount ISO image file in your Windows at a price of free.

If you are one of those who do not have a CD / DVD burner or do not want to burn the image on a CD / DVD, you can still access the files inside the ISO image by mounting the ISO image to virtual CD/DVD drive with MagicDisc. It works and behaves just like a physical CD / DVD drive.

MagicDisc is a freeware that allows you to mount ISO files as a virtual CD or DVD drive.

You can mount up to 15 virtual CD / DVD drives using MagicDisc. In addition to this you can also create a image file (ISO) from a existing CD or DVD. Usage is pretty simple. Once you have installed the software. It will show up as a tray icon.

Right clicking on the icon will load a new menu using which you can mount or unmount and image files as a virtual CD / DVD drive. Selecting the virtual drive will show you options to mount or unmount the drive.

Clicking on mount will open a file dialog from where you can choose the image file and mount it as a virtual drive and will appear in your Windows Explorer. You can then install the software or copy the files inside the  mounted drive. Once you have finished use of the mounted drive you can simply click on the Unmount option to unmount the drive.

This is a very useful software as it supports many different types of image files along with supporting the default ISO files

  • BIN (CDRWin)
  • IMA/IMG (Generic disk images)
  • CIF (Easy CD Creator)
  • NRG (Nero – Burning ROM)
  • IMG/CCD (CloneCD)
  • MDF/MDS (Fantom CD)
  • VCD (Farstone Virtual Drive)
  • VaporCD (Noum Vapor CDROM)
  • P01/MD1/XA (Gear)
  • VC4/000 (Virtual CD)
  • VDI (Virtuo CD Manager)
  • C2D (WinOnCD)
  • BWI/BWT (BlinkWrite)
  • CDI (DiscJuggler)
  • TAO/DAO (Duplicator)
  • PDI (Instant Copy)

MagicDisc will work on Windows  7/Vista/XP.

Backup and Restore Hardware Drivers in Windows

August 12th, 2012

Drivers are an important part of the system. They act as intermediaries between the system, and the hardware devices. They interpret the signals, and facilitate communication between the system and the devices. Without drivers, the devices won’t work at all, or won’t work properly.

Generally, the drivers come on a CD/DVD, with the hardware devices. As an alternative, they can also be downloaded from the manufacturer’s site, and that’s the best place to download the drivers, or their newer versions.

But, sometimes, the CDs can get misplaced, or lost, or the drivers might not be available from even the manufacturer’s site, because they might have stopped providing support for the hardware. Instead of going through all that hassle, you can simply use a great utility called Double Driver to help you backup and restore hardware drivers the easy way.

How to Backup and Restore Hardware Drivers in Windows?

Step #1: To start, first download Double Driver, It will be in zip format so just open it and execute the app named dd.exe.

Step #2: Now you can see the home screen and on the home screen just click “Back Up” button.

Step #3: On the next screen click “Scan current system”, by selecting this option Double Driver will scan your system for all the installed drivers and will automatically select all the third-party drivers like sound drivers, graphic drivers etc. You may also select the drivers individually which you want or don’t want. After finishing the selection just click the “back up” button.

Step #4: On the next screen you will see three back up options like ”Structured Folder, Compressed Folder & Single file self extract”. You can select any option based on your taste, for this tutorial I’m selecting “Compressed folder” option as it is easy to carry on my pen drive.

Next choose a destination directory to save the back up, then click “OK” to proceed the back up process.

That’s it, here you can see the progress of the back up and you will see the “Operation completed successfully” dialog box.

If you ever want to restore the backed up drivers, just open the Double Driver application and click the restore option on the home screen. It will restore all the backed up drivers and you can use them after restarting the system. This will save you plenty of time and troubles every time you reinstall Windows operating system.

Delete Your Confidential Files Permanently with Secure Wipe

July 28th, 2012

Once you decide to discard your hard drive or resell your PC, it is mandatory to remove all personal information, passwords, and other details that you saved on it. Just deleting the data or formatting the hard drive is not sufficient, because there are powerful tools to recover all deleted data. Therefore, you need to permanently wipe all data from the hard drive.

Secure Wipe is a small, free utility that allow you to completely delete sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. So, no one can recover your personal or important data from it.

How to use Secure Wipe?

After installation, run the tool. From the setting menu, select the deletion algorithm that you prefer (e.g. Gutmann 35). Then from the Eraser tab select a folder or file that contains your personal details. Then click Erase button to erase the data permanently.

Secure Wipe can be downloaded (917Kb) free at this link.

How to Remove Excel Workbook Password for Free

July 3rd, 2012

How many times have you forgotten password of a Microsoft Excel workbook/sheet and then had a sinking face?

Microsoft Excel has a protection feature that allows users to lock a workbook or sheet with a password. When the Excel workbook/sheet is protected with a password, any user attempt to edit data shows an error message as follow.

Here comes an handy Excel plug-in called Excel Password Remover utility which can remove the password protection from Excel workbooks and spreadsheets. You can install the plug in by downloading it from here. Once installed, it adds options Unprotect workbook and Unprotect sheet to Excel’s Tools menu, and choosing these options does what they are meant to.

Download Excel Password Remover

Note:

To install the plugin you should set security level of Macros to medium by following the menu Tools->Macros->Security in Microsoft Excel.

Excel Password Remover can’t be used to remove password set to open a spreadsheet. If you are unable to open the file because it asks you for a password, this program won’t help you. Then you need to get this Excel Password Recovery program to crack the file open password.

Password Protect Your USB Flash Drive with Bitlocker

June 26th, 2012

Data security on USB flash drives is a growing concern. USB flash drives, with the size no more than a pack of chewing gums, is always prone to theft or loss. Hence the security of data through USB data encryption is highly important.

There are many USB data encryption tools available, some are free and some are paid. However, did you know that starting from Windows Vista, Microsoft has added a free data encryption tool within the operating system. It is known as Bitlocker. In Windows Vista, it was only available for Business and Ultimate editions.

Bitlocker in Windows Vista was able to encrypt only the hard disks. But in Windows 7, Microsoft has extended the data encryption facility to USB flash drives also and rightly so, the encryption utility has been renamed as BitLocker To Go.

To use Microsoft BitLock to password protect your USB flash drive, please follow the steps below:

1. Right click on your USB flash drive.

2. Click on Turn on BitLocker….

3. Now the BitLocker feature starts encrypt the USB flash drive and its content.

4. Now we will be prompted to set a password or smart card protection for our USB flash drive.

5. Here you need to enter your password which need to to unlock the USB flash drive to continue. After enabling BitLocker feature you need this password to access data stored in the flash drive.