Dual Monitors - Using a different wallpaper per monitor

The ability to use two monitors at any one time, in my opinion, is a really good and gainful ability but what about feeling more comfortable with a different look per monitor? Maybe you'd like to use two different wallpapers or something... Which is what this tutorial about as I've seen it being posted on forums regularly.

So, you want to learn how?

March on down...

Usually the software to do this can cost. Nobody likes buying software! Well there is a free (FREE!!) program. A nice, kind and smart man who goes by the name of Jon Tackabury done this and can be found at

www.binaryfortress.com
or more specifically
http://www.binaryfortress.com/displayfusion/
to download the software. There is a pro version, but that costs. Its features aren't worth the costs. Well I don't think so anyway.

So anyway. Download the program. It's compatible with XP and Vista, which is good! I'll edit this or probably make a new post when it comes to using stuff like this on a Linux based computer, but Windows for now...

Once its been installed in the bottom right corner where the time, icons and everything else is, there should be a new icon. Guess what it is.. It's not that hard to get it right!

Go to:
Right click -> Desktop Wallpaper

You can click on each desktop in the display, and set display settings differently for each monitor, or span the wallpaper across the two. Quite neat.

This is what the program should look like once opened.




Another thing you may or may not notice; if you're on Flickr, you can even load wallpaper from there... Nice feature. All you do with that is enter in the text box what you want to search for and it'll find it.

Anyway.

If you chose the Settings from the tray icon popup menu, you'll notice that this application also adds a set of shortcut keys that can be used to move windows across monitors.

It should look like this.





If it doesn't, then you're somewhere else...

And you will know where to go from here. This wasn't much of a how to tutorial, but will do. You're not stupid. If you don't know what to do, you're not thinking properly.
(It helps)

So anyway. You can see the configuration windows. You can count from 1 to 10. This gives you all the mental capacity you need.

Enjoy.


Oh. And there's something else I should point out.
This software is "Donationware" apparently. It means that you don't have to pay for it, you don't have to make any donations, but consider it as its useful, and the designer wants a little something back. Which he deserves! But don't hesitate to avoid this if your pockets are thin.
I always do.

Finding hidden folders

Finding hidden folders or files for some people can be a stressful time. It's quite simple really, but some of you may not know how...yet...

So onward march to the tutorial!!

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Click on the View tab, and then click the radio button for "Show hidden files and folders"
3. Done.

The whole process is, as easy as pie!
Now you can view new files and folders which weren't previously there.
Sometimes people may only use the idea of being a different user, to hide their directories, which is basically how it's done. But now you know how to get around that, don't tell the person(s) this, keep it to yourself!
And if you do feel one day, the desire to tell the person(s), tell him/her/them (what ever the heck it is!) where you found out and get them to comment some of my posts.

Defrag multiple hard drives at once (XP)

What if people using XP wanted to defrag multiple hard drives at once...?
Well I've just recently noticed XP doesn't give you that option, so I set out to figure a way to do it myself...

Thinking that the defrag program can be started via CMD with this syntax...

"
Windows Disk Defragmenter

Copyright (c) 2001 Microsoft Corp. and Executive Software International, Inc.
Usage:
defrag <volume> [-a] [-f] [-v] [-?]
 volume  drive letter or mount point (d: or d:volmountpoint)
 -a      Analyze only
 -f      Force defragmentation even if free space is low
 -v      Verbose output   
 -?      Display this help text"

First we could create a batch (.bat) file, name it what you like but for this tutorial we'll call
it.... defragmulti.bat

TIP:  (You can place it in the Windows directory if you'd like to run it from the Command Prompt so it will be available in the system path)

So say in our computer, we have two hard drives... These are C and D. Easy to remember for the sake of our
tutorial, abCDef....

So using Notepad or a text editor of some sort, type in...

defrag c: -f
defrag d: -f

and then save the file as a .bat file.

To run the defrag just double-click it or run it from the Command Prompt, voila!
 To do this simply put in .bat after the name of the file.
Thus gives us our multiple hard drive defragment batch file. A big name for something so small,
but who cares?

How to access SAM file

NT Password Hashes - When you type your password into a Windows XP, NT or 2000 login Windows encrypts your password using an encryption scheme that turns your password into something like the following...

7524248b4d2c9a9eadd3b435c51404ee

This is a password Hash. This is what is actually being checked against when you type your password in. It encrypts what you typed and bounces it against what is stored in the Registry and/or SAM File.

SAM File - Holds the user names and password hashes for every account on the local machine, or domain if it is a domain controller. Simple enough wouldn't you say?

§ Where do I find the SAM/Hashes?

You can find what you're looking for in several locations on a given machine.

It can be found on the hard drive in the folder %systemroot%system32config. However this folder is locked to all accounts including Administrator while the machine is running. The only account that can access the SAM file during operation is the "System" account.

You may also be able to find the SAM file stored in %systemroot% epair if the NT Repair Disk Utility a.k.a. rdisk has been run and the Administrator has not removed the backed up SAM file.

The final location of the SAM or corresponding hashes can be found in the registry. It can be found under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESAM. This is also locked to all users, including Administrator, while the machine is in use.

So the three locations of the SAMHashes are:

- %systemroot%system32config

- %systemroot% epair (but only if rdisk has been run)

- In the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESAM

§ Obtaining the SAMPassword Hashes

Wow, how wonderful. Now we know where the goods are, and the problem is this... "How do I get my hands on those hashes?" The answer is "One of four ways."

1) Probably the easiest way to do this is to boot your target machine to an alternate OS like NTFSDOS or Linux and just copy the SAM from the %systemroot%system32config folder. It's quick, it's easy, and it's effective. You can get a copy of NTFSDOS from Sysinternals(http://www.sysinternals.com) The regular version of NTFSDOS is freeware, which is always nice, but only allows for Read-Only access. This should be fine for what you want to do, however, if you're the kind of person that just has to have total control and has some money to burn. NTFSDOS Pro, which is also by Sysinternals has read/write access but it'll cost you $299.

2) Once again, you may be able to obtain the SAM from %systemroot% epair if rdisk has been run and you are lucky enough to have a sloppy admin.

3) You can also get password hashes by using pwdump2. pwdump uses .DLL injection in order to use the system account to view the password hashes stored in the registry. It then pulls the hashes from the registry and stores them in a handy little text file that you can then import into a password cracking utility like l0phtcrack.

4) The final way to obtain password hashes is to listen directly to the network traffic as it floats by your computer and grab hashes using the above mentioned l0phtcrack.

§ Cracking Password Hashes

With the hashes in hand and an eagerness to find out what passwords lie waiting. Let's get cracking. While there are numerous programs available for the use of password cracking I will quickly cover two of the most popular ones.

John the Ripper - John the Ripper is to many, the old standby password cracker. It is command line which makes it nice if you're doing some scripting, and best of all it's free. The only real thing that JtR is lacking is the ability to launch Brute Force attacks against your password file. But look at it this way, even though it is only a dictionary cracker, that will probably be all you need. I would say that in my experience I can find about 85-90% of the passwords in a given file by using just a dictionary attack. Not bad, not bad at all.

L0phtCrack - Probably the most wildly popular password cracker out there. L0phtCrack is sold by the folks at @Stake. And with a pricetag of $249 for a single user license it sure seems like every one owns it. Boy, @Stake must be making a killing. :) This is probably the nicest password cracker you will ever see. With the ability to import hashes directly from the registry ala pwdump and dictionary, hybrid, and brute-force capabilities. No password should last long. Well, I shouldn't say "no password". But almost all will fall to L0phtCrack given enough time.

§ Injecting Password Hashes into the SAM

Probably one of my favorite and easiest ways to gain Administrator privileges on a machine, is by injecting password hashes into the SAM file. In order to do this you will need physical access to the machine and a brain larger than a peanut. Using a utility called "chntpw" by Petter Nordhal-Hagen you can inject whatever password you wish into the SAM file of any NT, 2000, or XP machine thereby giving you total control. I would suggest backing up the SAM file first by using an alternate OS. Go in, inject the password of your choosing. Login using your new password. Do what you need to do. Then restore the original SAM so no one knows you were there.

§ Password Strength

By looking at the methods above, you can see the importance in keeping strong passwords. Someone may be able to get there hands on your hashes, but it's whether or not they can crack them that is the real test. Don't make it easy on them.

When I create a password I like to use the first letter of each word in a phrase. Like "Password Strength is important so I pick good passwords" would be "psiisipgp". Now you have a 9 character password that isn't in any dictionary I know of. Bye Bye John the Ripper.

Now I like to flank passwords in special characters like "@$%?", now your password is ?psiisipgp?. This will ensure L0phtCrack takes a long time cracking it, giving you time to change it if you discover a breach, or just change your passwords regularly.

Adding Ecrypt/Decrypt options to Vista right click menu

Have you ever had the desire or need to encrypt or decrypt files in Vista? I have a few times and set out one day on a perilous trip round the internet to find out it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be...
How good was that?

Well anyway, here is how.

Note: It involves adding a registry key, but it's only adding a single one and is not too hard to mess up with unless you're Winnie the Pooh.

1. Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box, and then find the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

What should be up right now is...

2. In the right-hand panel, create a new 32-bit DWORD value called EncryptionContextMenu and give it a value of 1.

Now when you right-click on a file, you'll see a new option called Encrypt

<img src="http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/36/m_8f82258c782840a7a4c4a3743d8ddb10.png">


3. When you choose this option, you'll receive the following dialog, asking if you want to encrypt just the file, or also the parent folder. You can also choose just the file as the default.




4. Once the files are encrypted, you'll probably notice that the title of the file is now green, indicating that it's been encrypted. The right-click option will also now change to Decrypt.




It would be handy for Windows to actually build these in to the OS themselves though...

Make a shortcut to lock your screen on Windows Vista + XP

I really am not sure at all how I know this. I've been sitting here trying to think because it's been bugging me but I can't remember, but anyway. I'll tell you still.

This quick tutorial will show you how to create a shortcut to simply lock your computer screen on Vista and XP.

Usually you can do this by pressing ALT + L, but just in case you'd like it being a shortcut on your desktop, or in a folder or anywhere, here's how to do this...

1. Right click wherever you want to create the shortcut, then click New, and then Shortcut.

After doing this, you should have a window come up asking "What item would you like to create a shortcut for?"

2. In the Textbox simply just type "rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation" without the quotations.

After this it should say "What would you like to name the shortcut?"

3. Type anything you want at all for the name... This can be, Lock Screen, Lockit, anything you want!

There we go. Pretty useless really as there is a shortcut on the keyboard already for this, but there we go anyway.

How to: Dual boot Vista + Ubuntu 8.10

I see a lot of times, sprawled around on the internet "the safe way" to installing Ubuntu on a Vista PC as a second OS. There is no right way really, but there are wrong ways of going about it. This can make sense if you don't think too much in to it...

So, to begin with, you need most obviously, a PC, Vista installed, Ubuntu LiveCD, and a brain with enough capacity to read, follow instructions, and not get too confused.

Before going on to the tutorial I want to explain a few things:

1. Although the LiveCD gives you the option of installing Ubuntu inside Windows, this is not recommended totally. This can cause performance issues with both operating systems and it may just be easier to manage giving it its own partition.

2. Testing the OS on your computer first will tell you if there are any drivers that you need before installing the OS, start playing around with it and realise it won't work %100 because that can be annoying. The auto-run program should load once you have inserted the LiveCD into your disc drive. After this has done there should be an option called umenu.exe and once the Ubuntu Menu has loaded there is an option called Test or something like that. It gives you a brief description of what it is, I'll confirm this to you to try avoiding uneccessary confusion - but it won't be word to word.

"Run Ubuntu from CD without installing" basically...


3. If your computer came with a pre-installed Operating System and recovery disc then there will probably a partition on Disk Management called WinRE or something. Do NOT delete this as you won't be able to recover your Vista partition and all shall be lost... If it's not called WinRE, then maybe something similar, also it won't be that large of a partition because it only has the OS files. Nothing else.
If you're in doubt, get back to me on here providing me with a screen shot, a little information about the partitions on your computer and I'll let you know.

So onto the tutorial!

Follow this by clicking:
Start Menu -> Computer -> (right click) -> Manage (Management (one of them)) { You should get that Security Feature pop up thing here - Click "Continue" } -> Disk Management.

Your partitions' information should show now, right click the partition you want to resize and click Shrink, a box should pop up for you to enter the amount (MB) you want to reduce the partition.

You should probably also make a Recovery Partition about now if you don't have one. If you don't know how to do so, I'll be covering this in a later tutorial.

Put the LiveCD in, press F12 to enter the boot menu, boot from CD, follow the guides on installing the OS, it should be done sooner or later.

When you come across the partition manager on the LiveCD, this may be a bit hard for you to understand. I actually very nearly messed up too. But you should get there. Just make sure you read everything properly!

That's basically all there is to it for dual-booting a PC with Vista already on it. But also make sure you follow the guides properly, because I nearly messed up here making the Ubuntu partition and nearly used the whole drive.

Creating full backup/recovery image of Windows Vista for DVD

Backing up all your data is an essential thing to the PC world today. Now being even more threatened by such things as hackers, viruses, malware, and all of that crap, there has never been a better time to start backing up frequently.

One time which is probably most recommended to back up though, is when you decide to go playing around with your partitions, installing new operating systems, or somehow you may mess up just trying to shrink your partition.

Vista provides a tool just for that!
So Vista isn't all bad now then, is it? Still, this won't stop it from being slow or having any of the other annoyances it has but still deserves I suppose a little more credit than it gets.

Following this tutorial I wrote out earlier today will give you a nice, good looking backup image of your Vista PC.

To start the backup image, proceed as follows:

1: Click the Start button

2/ From the Start Menu, Click All Programs > Accessories > System Tools

3: On the System Tools menu, Click the Backup Status and Configuration option

4: In the backup Window, Click the Complete PC Backup option

5: In the Complete PC Backup window, Click the Create Backup Now option

6: User Account Control (UAC) asks for permission to continue. If you are the administrator, Click the Continue button. If you are not the administrator you will be required to supply the relevant authority before being able to continue.

7: Vista will now search for operating systems on your PC

8: After Vista has located the operating system details the 'Where do you want to save the backup' window appears

9: Select either the Hard drive or DVD option. Please ensure you have enough free disk space or the required quantity of DVDs before proceeding

10: Click the Next button

11: The next screen asks "Which disk do you want to include". You should note that, if you are using a dual boot system - for instance, Windows XP and Vista, both the XP and Vista drives will be marked up for backup, and that these options cannot be changed by the user. If XP is on the first partition, Windows Vista will store its bootloader files there, hence the need to backup both partitions/drives

12: The Vista drive will already be selected. If you have other partitions/drives you wish to include in the backup now is the time to select them

13: Once you have selected the partition/drive you wish to include in the backup, press the Next button

14: In the Confirm your backup settings window, Check that everything you want to backup is listed in 'The following disk will be backed up' dialogue box, and then Press the Start Backup button

15: Windows will now prepare to Create a Backup

16: If you are using DVDs, you will now be asked to Insert a blank disk larger than 1GB into your DVD drive

17: Insert the DVD

18: The DVD will now be formatted. After formatting Windows will start to backup your PC's data

19: If you are backing up to a separate hard drive or partition the backup process will start from the second you click the Start Backup Button