How to Make An Invisible Password Protected Folder

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

Do you want to password protect your folder? Do you want to make it invisible so that it remains unnoticed by other users of your PC? Well, here is a way to do that.

In this post, I will show you how to make an invisible password protected folder in Windows without using any additional software.

How to Create a Password Protected Folder?

Here is is step-by-step procedure to do this:

Step-1: Create a new folder (Right-click -> New -> Folder) and give it any name of your choice. For instance I name it as ABC.

Step-2: Now, in this folder place all the important files, documents or any folders that you want to password protect.

Step-3: Right-click on this folder (ABC) and select the option Send To -> Compressed (zipped) Folder.

Step-4: Now a new compressed zipped folder gets created next this folder (ABC) with the same name.

Step-5: Double-click on this compressed zipped folder and you should see your original folder (ABC) here.

Step-6: Now go to the File menu and select the option Add a password (File -> Add a password)

Now a small window will pop up and here you can set your desired password. Once the password is set, the folder will ask for the password every time it is opened. Thus ,you have now created the password protected folder.

How to Make the Folder Invisible?

Step-1: Right-click on this password protected folder and select Properties.

Step-2: At the bottom select the option Hidden and press OK. Now your folder gets invisible (hidden).

Step-3: In order to unhide this folder, go to My Computer -> Tools -> Folder options. Switch to View tab, scroll down and under Hidden files and folders you’ll see the following two options:

• Do not show hidden files and folders.
• Show hidden files and folders.

Select the second option and press OK. Now the invisible folder becomes visible in its location. To access it you need the password. To make it invisible again, repeat step -1 through step-3 and select the first option and click OK. Now, the folder becomes invisible once again.

I hope that you’ve now understood how to create an invisible password protected folder in Windows. If you like this post, pass your comments! Cheers 

How to Repair Windows Registry the Easy Way

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

This article explains how to inspect and repair the registry errors in your Windows PC so as to improve its overall performance. If you are a Windows user, you are most likely to be aware of the fact that the Windows registry gets corrupted over time resulting in an overall decreased performance of the computer.

At times, registry errors can also make your PC to freeze down and hang up every now and then causing a serious annoyance to the users. At this point, the registry needs a serious repair to bring the PC back to its life. Well, before I tell you how to repair the registry, lets see what causes the registry to get corrupted.

Registry errors may occur due to installing too many applications/software programs from time to time without verifying the publishers. This may create invalid entries in the registry hive leading to the errors. With the Internet boom and the era of freeware with free downloads, people often install programs from untrusted sources which results in a serious damage to the registry. Since the registry is a crucial component of the Windows operating system, damage to this can cause the system performance to drop down significantly.

Repairing the Corrupt Windows Registry: The Easy Way

The best and the easiest way to do this is by using a Registry Repair Tool (Registry Cleaner). This program will automatically scan the registry of your PC to find invalid entries and will fix them by removing the errors with in no time. A registry cleaner is the simple and safest solution to fix registry errors without the need to re-install the Windows.

Which Registry Cleaner is the Best?

Well, today there exists hundreds of Registry repair tools on the market and as a result, people often get confused at which one to go far. Hence, when it comes to the choice of Registry repair tool, we must be very selective since not all of them are the same.

On the Internet, there exists many such tools which are simply useless and doesn’t apply any significant fixes to the Windows registry. After trying many such useless products on my PC, I finally found one good product which actually made a magic to my PC performance. It is:

RegCure Pro – Boost Your PC Speed

RegCure Pro is one of the best and award winning registry cleaner tool that repairs registry to avoid PC errors such as unwanted shutdown, freezing, crashing and more. This tool will:

• Repair the registry and increases your PC performance by upto 70%
• Fix DLL errors and invalid shortcuts
• Free up virtual memory to avoid error messages
• Performs Defragmentation and Compression of the registry
• Fix blue screen errors, system crashes, startup errors and more…

RegCure Pro is not just a Registry cleaner, rather it is a complete Optimization Toolkit for your PC. For more information on this program, you can visit the RegCure Pro Homepage.

Can I Manually Repair the Registry?

Windows registry has a very complex structure with hundreds of thousands of entries embedded in it. A corrupt registry may contain thousands of invalid entries and errors in it as a result of which, it is impractical and almost impossible to manually inspect, find and repair those errors. Also, manual registry repair involves serious risk and can lead to a total system breakdown if done improperly. Except you are a highly experienced Windows user or a Windows expert, you are not encouraged to tamper with the registry.

Hence, using a Repair tool is the safest and the easiest way to repair the registry errors and improve the overall performance of your PC. It is recommended that you periodically (daily or weekly) perform registry scans using these tools to repair the errors as and when they come up so that, you can keep your PC’s health at its best. Just repairing the Windows registry can make your PC blazing fast like never before!

How to Alter Windows Product ID

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

If you are running a Microsoft Windows operating system on your computer, then you are most likely aware of the fact that your PC will have a Product ID. This Product ID is a system specific alphanumeric code which is derived/calculated based on the Windows product key you use and the hardware configuration of your Computer. In simple words, Product ID is the alphanumeric code that you see when you right-click on the My Computer icon and select the Properties option.

Ever wondered how to alter the Windows Product ID?

It is possible to alter the Windows Product ID and change it to what ever you like. For example, you can change the Product ID and put your nickname in place of the formal Product ID displayed by the Operating System. This hack is too easy and can be done within minutes. The screenshot showing the altered Product ID is given below:

Windows 7 PC showing Original PID:

Windows 7 PC showing Altered PID:

As you can see from the above screenshot it is simple and easy to make your Windows display what ever you want in the place of the real Product ID. Here is a step-by-step procedure to alter your Windows Product ID (works on Windows XP, Vista and 7):

1. Go to Start -> Run and type regedit in the Run dialog box
2. After you open the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:
   HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version
3. On the right hand side, you can see an entry by name ProductID listed under the heading Name.
4. Double-Click on ProductID, a dialog box will pop-up showing your Windows PID. Now you can delete the original PID and enter anything of your choice.
5. Once you are done, just click on OK and close the Registry Editor. Now you can see the altered Product ID in the Windows Properties window.

NOTE: The above trick will let you change only the Product ID that is being displayed on Windows Properties window and not the actual product ID stored in the registry. In order to change the actual product ID, you will have to change the Windows product key used.

You can change the Windows product key as follows:

For Vista and Windows 7:

In the “Run” dialog box type SLUI 3 and hit Enter. You should see a pop-up window where in you can enter the new product key. Just follow the screen instructions to complete the procedure.

For Windows XP:

1. Open the Registry editor (Type regedit in Run and hit Enter)
2. In the Registry editor, Navigate to the following location:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents
3. In the right side pane, locate OOBETimer, right-click on it and choose the option Modify.
4. Change at least one entry in the Value data text box and click OK.
5. In the Run dialog box, type the following command and hit Enter:
   %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a
6. You will now see a pop-up window saying “Let’s Activate Windows”. Choose the option “Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to activate Window”s and then click Next.
7. You should now see an option to change your product key. Type a new valid Windows product key in the field and click on the “Update” button.

This should change the product key of your Windows there by resulting in a new Product ID. I hope you like this trick. Pass your comments. Cheers!

How to Change the Logon Screen Background in Windows 7

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

How would you like to change the logon screen background in Windows 7 so as to give your Windows a customized look and feel? With a small tweak it is possible to change the Windows 7 logon screen and set your own picture/wallpaper as the background.

Customizing the logon screen background in Windows 7 is as simple as changing your desktop wallpaper. Well, here is a step-by-step instruction to change the logon screen background:

1. The image you need to set as the logon screen background should be a .jpg file and its size should not exceed 245KB.
2. The image resolution can be anything of your choice. However I prefer 1440 x 900 or 1024 x 768. You can use any of the photo editing software such as Photoshop to compress and set the resolution for your image. Once you’re done, save this image as backgroundDefault.jpg.
3. You will need to copy this image to the following location:
   C:\Windows\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds
   You will need to create that path if it does not already exist on your computer.
4. Now, open the Registry Editor (Start -> Run -> Type regedit) and navigate to the following key:
   HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\
   LogonUI\Background
   If the key Background does not exist, then right-click on LogonUI, select New -> Key, and then name it as Background.
   Now locate OEMBackground (listed on the right side). If it does not exist, right-click Background and select New -> DWORD and name it OEMBackground.
5. Double-click on OEMBackground and set the Value Data to 1.
6. Now log-off to see the new logon screen background. If you would like to revert back to the default background, just set the Value Data back to 0.

Using a Tool to Change the Logon Screen Background:

The above steps will give you a detailed instruction on how to change the logon screen background manually. However, there is a nice tool to completely automate the above steps so that you can do everything with just a few mouse clicks!

The tool is called Windows 7 Logon Background Changer from Julien-Manici.com. This small tool is very easy to use and contains a set of preloaded images to choose from or you can set your own desired image as the logon screen background.

I hope you love this post! Pass your comments. Cheers 

Take Ownership of Files and Folders in Windows 7

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

If you are a Windows 7 user, then you are most likely to be aware of the fact that you need to TAKE OWNERSHIP of files and folders before you can make any changes to them. This feature was introduced first in Windows Vista and later in Windows 7 in order to prevent any unauthorized changes from being made to the system files.

However, it can be little annoying to follow a long list of procedure every time you want to take ownership of a certain file or folder. So, to make this job simpler, I have found a nice tool called Take Ownership Shell Extension which adds the “Take Ownership” option to the Windows context menu itself. This makes taking ownership too simple and requires no more than a click.

Just run the portable tool kit and click on the “Install” button. This will add the “Take Ownership” option onto the context menu. To take ownership of a file or folder, all you need to do is just right-click on it and click the option “Take Ownership“.

In case if you wish to uninstall this tool at any time, you can just run the tool again and click on the ”Uninstall” button. I hope you like this tool. This works on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. You can download it from the following link.

Download Take Ownership Shell Extention

How to take the Ownership Manually?

In case if you are interested to know how to take the ownership manually, here is how you can do that:

1. Right-click the file or folder on which you want to take the ownership and then click on Properties.
2. Now go to the Security tab, click on Advanced button and then click the Owner tab.
3. Now, click on Edit and do the following:
• Under the “Change owner to:” section, select the user or group to which you would like to grant the permissions and then click on the OK button.
• If the user or the group to which you would like to grant permissions is not listed under theChange owner to: section, just click on Other users and groups and, under Enter the object name to select (examples), type the name of the user or group, and then click OK.
4. Now you should get the confirmation dialog box stating that the ownership is granted.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Pass your comments to share your experiences. 

How to Write-Protect Your USB Flash Drive

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

Many a time, it becomes necessary for us to write protect our USB flash drive so as to protect it from viruses and other malware programs. As flash drives are so popular and most widely used to move data between computers, they are the prime target for attackers as a means to get infections spread around the computer world. Also, since USB drive is not a Read-Only Memory (ROM), the data inside it can easily be modified or deleted by malware programs.

But unfortunately, most of the new flash drives do not come with a write-protect feature as the manufacturers wish to cut down the cost of production. Hence, the only way to write-protect your USB flash drives is to enable this feature on your own computer.

Steps to Write-Protect Your USB Drive:

This can be done by adding a small entry to the Windows registry which acts as a switch that can be enabled to make use of the write protection or disabled to allow write access. Here we go:

1. Open the Registry Editor (Open the “Run” dialog box, type regedit and hit “Enter”).
2. Navigate to the following Registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
3. Create a New Key named as StorageDevicePolicies. To do this, right-click on Control, again click on New -> Key and name it as StorageDevicePolicies.
4. Now right-click on  StorageDevicePolicies and create a New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it asWriteProtect.
   
5. Double-click on WriteProtect and set the Value data to 1.
   Now the right-protection for USB drives is enabled on your computer (no restart required) and thus it would not be possible for anyone or any program to add/delete the contents from your USB flash drive. Any attempt to copy or download the files onto the USB drive will result in the following error message being displayed.
   

To revert and remove the write-protection, all you need to do is just change the Value data for WriteProtect(Step-5) from 1 back to 0. Now write access to all the USB devices is re-enabled.

Sometimes it may seem difficult to remember and follow the above mentioned steps each time you want to enable/disable the write protection. Hence as an alternative way, there are many tools available to automatically enable/disable the write-protection feature. One of my favorite tool is USB Write Protect byNaresh Manadhar.

Using this tool, you can limit write access to your USB drives with just a click of a button. You can download this tool from the following link:

USBWriteProtect

I hope you’ve now understood how to enable or disable write-protection of USB devices on your computer.