Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ category

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How to Secure USB Drive with BitLocker To Go

October 26th, 2012 by Admin

Losing a USB flash drive can be the stuff of nightmares if it contains sensitive or valuable information. If your computer is running the Ultimate or Enterprise edition of Windows 8/7/Vista, you can use Microsoft’s included BitLocker To Go feature to encrypt your entire USB drive.

BitLocker To Go allows you to encrypt the data stored on a USB drive and restrict access with a password. Without the password, the USB drive is worthless. When you connect the encrypted USB drive to a Windows computer, you are prompted for the password, and upon entering it you can read and write to the drive as you normally would.

In this article I will walk through the steps of securing a USB drive (thumb drive) with Bitlocker To Go in Windows 7.

How to Secure USB Drive with BitLocker To Go?

Connect the USB drive for which you want to enable BitLocker Encryption.

Click Start, then click Control Panel. Click System and Security.

Click BitLocker Drive Encryption. This screen presents a list of all the drive partitions and the connected USB drives which could be protected with BitLocker To Go.

Click the Turn On BitLocker link option near your USB drive. It starts the initialization process of BitLocker Drive Encryption.

Once the initialization process is complete, BitLocker To Go will prompt you to set up a password that you will use to unlock the drive. If you have a smart card, you can use its PIN to unlock the drive.

After you set up a password or use a smart card, BitLocker To Go will prompt you to store a recovery key. You can use the recovery key to unlock your drive in the event that you forget the password or lose your smart card.

When you create the password and save your recovery key, you’ll be prompted to begin the encryption process.

Click on Start Encrypting button. The amount of time that it will take to complete the process will depend on how large the drive is.

When the encryption is complete, you’ll notice that the drive icon shows a lock on the drive.

The next time you plug in the USB drive to a Windows machine you will be prompted to enter the password to gain access to the drive.

In future, any file you save on that drive will be encrypted automatically.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 7

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Backup and Restore Saved Passwords in Windows Vault

October 24th, 2012 by Admin

Windows 7 includes a new feature called Windows Vault, which is actually a new name for Stored User Names and Passwords in Windows Vista/XP. Whenever you access a file share on another machine, map a drive to a remote server, or connect to a Windows domain, you will be prompted to provide a username and password as shown below.

If you select the “Remember my credentials” checkbox, it will store the credentials in Windows Vault. Next time, when you connect to the same resource, your saved credentials will be used automatically, and you will not be prompted for credentials. This can be a great time-saving feature if you need to access the same resource frequently.

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to backup and restore the save passwords in Windows Vault. You can access the Windows Vault through the Credential Manager. The easiest way is by just typing “Credential Manager” in the Windows 7 Start Menu search prompt. You can also access the Credential Manager through the Control Panel.

How to Backup Saved Passwords in Windows Vault?

  1. Click on the Back up vault link in the Credential Manager. This will bring up the Stored User Names and Passwords wizard.
  2. Select a file location to backup the stored logon credentials on your computer. Click Next.
  3. In next window, you will be asked to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete on your keyboard.
  4. Enter a new password to protect the backup file. Confirm the password and click Next.
  5. Your screen will turn black. Click Finish to complete the backup wizard.

How to Restore Windows Vault Passwords?

  1. Click on the Restore vault link in the Credential Manager. This will bring up the Stored User Names and Passwords wizard.
  2. Select your credential backup file which you have created previously. Click Next.
  3. You are asked to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete in order to continue.
  4. Type the password for your password-protected credential backup file. Click Next.
  5. Your Windows credentials have been restored. Click Finish.

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks, Windows 7

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How to Remove Windows Administrator Password

October 24th, 2012 by Admin

Forgot Windows administrator password? This might bring a lot of irritating and time consuming consequences. Even if you can still log on your computer with a limited account, you don’t have full right to remove or change administrator password. So the only option is to do it from a boot CD/USB.

With Reset Windows Password utility you are able to remove Windows administrator password without knowing the original one for your Windows 8/7/Vista/XP system. This utility works by making a bootable CD or USB drive. After booting from the CD/USB drive, this utility gains full access to the Windows SAM (Security Accounts Manager) file where all Windows passwords are stored, and enables you to easily remove the password associated with your administrator account.

How to Remove Windows Administrator Password?

  1. Download the zip archive of Reset Windows Password utility to an alternative computer. Once you download the zip file, just unzip it and burn the ResetWindowsPwd.iso file to a blank CD or USB flash drive using ISO2Disc.
  2. Insert the bootable CD/USB drive into the target computer with a forgotten administrator password. Power on the computer and set it to boot from CD or USB, not your local hard drive.
  3. Shortly after loading the operating system inside the CD/USB drive, it will launch the Reset Windows Password program. You’ll see the Windows SAM registry hive and a list of Windows user accounts which are detected by the program.
  4. Choose the administrator account and then click on Reset Password button, it will remove your Windows administrator password immediately.
  5. Remove the bootable CD or USB drive. Restart the computer and you can then log in to your administrator account with a blank password.

Reset Windows Password utility can be used to as a great relief if you are usually confronted with the problem of forgetting Windows password. Follow this simple guide you can remove Windows administrator password on almost all versions of Windows system.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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How to Copy and Paste Files Across Remote Desktop

October 23rd, 2012 by Admin

There are occasions when you need to copy or transfer files between your local and remote computers via remote desktop. However the copy and paste generally doesn’t work. The well-known solution is to enable drive mapping in remote desktop, so you can access your local drive from the remote computer. But it will expose your personal local drive to that computer, which can also lead to virus attack.

Actually, you can make the copy and paste function work by starting the Rdpclip utility. Rdpclip (remote desktop clipboard) is responsible for providing copy/paste functionality over a remote desktop connection, which is available in all versions of Windows. To regain the copy and paste function, you’ll need to manually restart the Rdpclip.exe utility.

How to Copy and Paste Files Across Remote Desktop?

  1. Click Start, type mstsc in the Run box to start up a remote desktop connection dialog.
  2. Then expand the dialog by clicking on Options, then check the Local Resources tab.
  3. Make sure the Clipboard is checked, so the Rdpclip utility will be automatically started in your remote computer after setting up a remote desktop connection.
  4. The next step is to launch the Rdpclip utility on your local computer. Just click Start menu, type rdpclip in the Run box, press Enter key. The program will run in the background.
  5. Now you should be able to copy and paste files from your local computer to a remote desktop session, drag and drop files from the remote desktop machine to your local machine.

If the copy and paste function still does not work or stops working all of a sudden, you may need to kill the Rdpclip process and start it again.

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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How to Disable Prompt for Password on Wake Up from Sleep/Standby

October 22nd, 2012 by Admin

The prompt for user password upon wake up from sleep, standby or hibernate is a feature provided in Windows 7/Vista/XP for security reason. But if you are the sole owner of PC and you do not have any threat from someone gaining access to your PC then you might find this feature an annoying one and may want to disable it. It’s easy to disable the prompt for password when computer wakes up from sleep, standby or hibernate in Windows 7/Vista/XP.

How to Disable Password Prompt on Wake Up in Windows 7?

  1. Go to Control Panel –> Hardware and Sound –> Power Options.
  2. On the left side, click the Require a password on wakeup option. You navigate to System Settings as shown in the breadcrumb.
  3. Click the Change settings that are currently unavailable link under the Password protection on wakeup section. This will enable the two options below the link.

  4. Select the Don’t require a password option.
  5. Click the Save changes button.

How to Disable Password Prompt on Wake Up in Windows Vista?

  1. Go to Control Panel –> Hardware and Sound –> Power Options.
  2. Find the power plan you’re using, and then click the Change plan settings link
  3. Click the Change advanced power settings link. The Power Options dialog box is displayed.
  4. Click the Change settings that are currently unavailable link. This will enable the On battery drop-down list in the list box.
  5. Select No from the On battery drop-down list under the Require a password on wakeup node.
  6. Select No from the Plugged in drop-down list below the On battery drop-down list.
  7. Click OK.

How to Disable Password Prompt on Wake Up in Windows XP?

  1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
  2. Click Performance and Maintenance.
  3. Click Power Options.
  4. Click Advanced tab.
  5. Under the Options section, uncheck the check box for Prompt for password when computer resume from standby option.
After re-configuration, Windows won’t prompt and ask user to enter a password on resume or wake up from sleep or standby state anymore.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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How to Remove Windows Vista Password

October 20th, 2012 by Admin

I have a friend who just bought a desktop computer with Windows Vista. Her daughter create a login ID with a password (as the administrator) but she forgot the password. How can I remove this password?

How to remove Windows Vista password when you forgot it? Whether you have forgotten your own password, or you want to help others remove forgotten Vista password, here is a very easy trick or method, which does not require you to go through complex steps to remove Windows Vista password. Reset Windows Password utility is the fastest and easiest way to remove a Windows Vista password. All you have to do is create a password removal boot CD and insert it into your computer, the tool does the rest for you.

How to Remove Windows Vista Password?

1. Download the Reset Windows Password utility. Unzip the download file, you’ll get the CD ISO image: ResetWindowsPwd.iso, which contains a Windows password removal program.

2. Write the boot CD ISO image to a blank CD using a CD writer and CD writing program. If your computer doesn’t have a CD drive, you can burn the ISO image to a USB flash drive using ISO2Disc.

3. Insert the freshly-written boot CD into the computer whose password needs to be removed. Restart the computer and boot from the CD.

4. After booting from the CD, it will load the operating system inside the CD and start the Reset Windows Password program.

5. Select the SAM registry hive from the drop-down list, it will display a list of local user accounts for your Windows installation.

6. Choose the user account whose password you forgot, then click on the Reset Password button, it will remove your forgotten password immediately.

7. Exit the password removal program and restart your computer. You can then log on Windows Vista with a blank password.

Besides removing Windows Vista password, you can also use the boot CD to remove forgotten login password in Windows 8/7/XP/2008/2003/2000.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows Vista

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How to Perform Active Directory Offline Defragmentation

October 19th, 2012 by Admin

The Active Directory database tends to become fragmented over time, just like any other database does. Although Windows Server 2008/2003/2000 performs behind-the-scenes online defragmentation periodically, this defragmentation only moves data around the database file (NTDS.DIT) and doesn’t reduce the file’s size – the ntds.dit database file cannot be compacted while Active Directory is online. If you have significantly fewer objects in AD than you had previously, you can shrink the size of the ntds.dit file by performing an offline defragmentation.

Tips: If you forgot domain administrator password in Active Directory and can’t log on the domain controller, you can reset/unlock any domain user account passwords easily with Reset Windows Password utility.

Performing an offline defragmentation can increase performance, however, the main reason would normally be to free up disk space. Please note, you should backup your database before doing this by copying your ntds.dit to another location.

How to Perform Active Directory Offline Defragmentation?

First, you need to stop the Active Directory Domain Service. You can defrag / compact the ntds.dit database file when AD is not running. It’s not necessary to reboot into Directory Services Restore Mode.

After the services have been stopped, open a Command Prompt on the server, and enter the following commands:
NTDSUTIL
Activate Instance NTDS
Files
Info

At this point, you should see a summary of the files that are used by the Active directory database. To begin the defragmentation process, enter the following command:
Compact to e:\windows\ntds\temp
The command shown above assumes that you have created a folder named Temp beneath the e:\windows\ntds\temp folder.

When the process completes, you need to do what it says and copy the defragged database from e:\windows\ntds\temp\ntds.dit to e:\windows\ntds\ntds.dit.

Finally, restart the Active Directory Domain Services (the dependency services will restart automatically). You now have a smaller and better performing Active Directory.

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Posted in Active Directory Password, Tips & Tricks

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How to Backup Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

October 19th, 2012 by Admin

Backing up Active Directory is essential to maintain an Active Directory database. A system state backup is particularly important for disaster recovery purpose in case of a accidental corruption or deletion of Active Directory objects. Since Windows Server 2008, you won’t find the well-known ntbackup.exe, the native backup tool in previous Windows versions. Instead, you use Windows Server Backup, the new native backup solution, which is available as an installation option in all versions of Server 2008.

Tips: If you forgot domain administrator password in Active Directory and can’t log on the domain controller, you can reset/unlock any domain user account passwords easily with Reset Windows Password utility.

In this tutorial we’re going to demonstrate the steps of backing up Windows Server 2008 Active Directory. To get started, you need to install Windows Server Backup from the Server Manager, so you can then use it to perform a system state backup.

Part 1: Install Windows Server Backup

  1. Go to Start menu, and then select Administrative Tools, click on Server Manger.
  2. Under Server Manager window, click on the Add Features link from the features summary section.
  3. Select the Windows Server Backup Features, and then click on Next. The Command-line Tools allows you to perform a DC backup and recovery from the command line.
  4. Click on Install to complete the installation.

Part 2: Backup Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

Now that we have Windows Server Backup installed lets perform our first backup of Active Directory in Windows Server 2008.

  1. Go to Start menu, and then select Administrative Tools, click on Windows Server Backup.
  2. Select the Backup Once option to perform an immediate backup as illustrated in the screen below.
  3. It will bring up the Backup Once Wizard, select Different Options and then click Next.
  4. If you want to perform a full backup of your server, click on the Full server option. Now we’re going to perform a system state backup, so we choose the Custom option.
  5. In the next window, you can customize the items you want to backup.
  6. Click on Add Items button, check the System state option from the list. You can also choose to backup the entire NTFS volume on your computer.
  7. Specify the destination type for your backup. A system-state backup can’t be performed directly to a network share so we have to choose the Local drives.
  8. Next select a volume to store the backup. Windows Server Backup requires you to provide a separate target volume for the backup data. In single-volume server, you may need to shrink the existing partition to create a volume dedicated solely to backup data.
  9. In the next window, confirm the options you have selected and then click on Backup.

If you want to script the backup process, or if you are backing up a server on a Server Core installation, you can use the WBADMIN.EXE command-line program. WBADMIN provides a complete set of options that perform essentially the same functions as the MMC snap-in, including performing a system state backup.

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Posted in Active Directory Password, Tips & Tricks

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