Exiting Windows the Cool and Quick Way Normally it takes a hell lot of time just Shutting down Windows, you have to move your mouse to the Start Button, click on it, move it again over Shut Down, click, then move it over the necessary option and click, then move the cursor over the OK button and once again (you guessed it) click.This whole process can be shortened by creating shortcuts on the Desktop which will shut down Windows at the click of a button. Start by creating a new shortcut( right click and select New> Shortcut). Then in the command line box, type (without the quotes.) 'C:\windows
undll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec' This Shortcut on clicking will restart Windows immediately without any Warning. To create a Shortcut to Restarting Windows, type the following in the Command Line box: 'c:\windows
undll.exe user.exe,exitwindows' This Shortcut on clicking will shut down Windows immediately without any Warning. Ban Shutdowns : A trick to Play on Lamers This is a neat trick you can play on that lamer that has a huge ego, in this section I teach you, how to disable the Shut Down option in the Shut Down Dialog Box. This trick involves editing the registry, so please make backups. Launch regedit.exe and go to : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer In the right pane look for the NoClose Key. If it is not already there then create it by right clicking in the right pane and selecting New > String Value.(Name it NoCloseKey ) Now once you see the NoCloseKey in the right pane, right click on it and select Modify. Then Type 1 in the Value Data Box. Doing the above on a Win98 system disables the Shut Down option in the Shut Down Dialog Box. But on a Win95 machine if the value of NoCloseKey is set to 1 then click on the Start > Shut Down button displays the following error message: This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator. You can enable the shut down option by changing the value of NoCloseKey to 0 or simply deleting the particular entry i.e. deleting NoCloseKey. Instead of performing the above difficult to remember process, simply save the following with an extension of .reg and add it's contents to the registry by double clicking on it. REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoClose"="1" Disabling Display of Drives in My Computer This is yet another trick you can play on your geek friend. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer go to : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives. Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) Now press F5 to refresh. When you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown. To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item. It's .reg file is as follows: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoDrives"=dword:03ffffff Pop a banner each time Windows Boots To pop a banner which can contain any message you want to display just before a user is going to log on, go to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinLogon Now create a new string Value in the right pane named LegalNoticeCaption and enter the value that you want to see in the Menu Bar. Now create yet another new string value and name it: LegalNoticeText. Modify it and insert the message you want to display each time Windows boots. This can be effectively used to display the company's private policy each time the user logs on to his NT box. It's .reg file would be: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] "LegalNoticeCaption"="Caption here." Making the Internet Explorer & the Explorer Toolbars Fancy The Internet Explorer toolbar looks pretty simple. Want to make it fancy and kewl? Why not add a background image to it. To do this kewl hack launch the Windows Registry Editor and go to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Toolbar\. Now in the right pane create a new String Value and name it BackBitmap and modify it's value to the path of the Bitmap you want to dress it up with by rightclicking on it and choosing Modify. When you reboot the Internet Explorer and the Windows Explorer toolbars will have a new look. Change Internet Explorer's Caption Don't like the caption of Internet Explorer caption? Want to change it? Open the registry editor and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main. In the right pane create a new String Value names Window Title (Note the space between Window and Title). Right click on this newly created String Value and select Modify. Type in the new caption you want to be displayed. Restart for the settings to take place. Hacking Secrets Almost all system administrators make certain changes and make the system restricted. System Administrators can hide the RUN option, the FIND command, the entire Control Panel, drives in My Computer like D: A: etc. They can even restrict activities of a hacker my disabling or hiding, even the tiniest options or tools. Most commonly these restrictions are imposed locally and are controlled by the Windows Registry. But sometimes the smart system administrators control the activities of the hacker by imposing restrictions remotely through the main server. Poledit or Policy Editor is a small kewl tool which is being commonly used by system administrators to alter the settings of a system. This utility is not installed by default by Windows. You need to install in manually from the Windows 98 Installation Kit from the Resource Kit folder. user.dat file that we saw earlier. The Policy Editor tool imposes restrictions on the user's system by editing the user.dat file which in turn means that it edits the Windows Registry to change the settings. It can be used to control or restrict access to each and every folder and option you could ever think of. It has the power to even restrict access to individual folders, files, the Control Panel, MS DOS, the drives available etc. Sometimes this software does make life really hard for a Hacker. So how can we remove the restrictions imposed by the Policy Editor? Well read ahead to learn more. You see the Policy Editor is not the only way to restrict a user's activities. As we already know that the Policy Editor edits the Windows Registry(user.dat) file to impose such restrictions. So this in turn would mean that we can directly make changes to the Windows Registry using a .reg file or directly to remove or add restrictions. Launch Regedit and go to the following Registry Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/CurrentVersion/Policies Under this key, there will definitely be a key named explorer. Now under this explorer key we can create new DWORD values and modify it's value to 1 in order to impose the restriction. If you want to remove the Restriction, then you can simply delete the respective DWORD values or instead change their values to 0. The following is a list of DWORD values that can be created under the Explorer Key-: NoDeletePrinter: Disables Deletion of already installed Printers NoAddPrinter: Disables Addition of new Printers NoRun : Disables or hides the Run Command NoSetFolders: Removes Folders from the Settings option on Start Menu (Control Panel, Printers, Taskbar) NoSetTaskbar: Removes Taskbar system folder from the Settings option on Start Menu NoFind: Removes the Find Tool (Start >Find) NoDrives: Hides and does not display any Drives in My Computer NoSaveSettings: Means to say, 'Don't save settings on exit' DisableRegistryTools: Disable Registry Editing Tools (If you disable this option, the Windows Registry Editor(regedit.exe) too will not work.) NoRecentDocsHistory: Removes Recent Document system folder from the Start Menu (IE 4 and above) ClearRecentDocsOnExit: Clears the Recent Documents system folder on Exit. Nolnternetlcon: Removes the Internet (system folder) icon from the Desktop Under the same key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/CurrentVersion/Policies you can create new subkeys other than the already existing Explorer key. Now create a new key and name it System. Under this new key, system we can create the following new DWORD values(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option): NODispCPL: Hides Control Panel NoDispBackgroundPage: Hides Background page. NoDispScrsavPage: Hides Screen Saver Page NoDispAppearancePage: Hides Appearance Page NoDispSettingsPage: Hides Settings Page NoSecCPL: Disables Password Control Panel NoPwdPage: Hides Password Change Page NoAdminPaqe: Hides Remote Administration Page NoProfilePage: Hides User Profiles Page NoDevMgrPage: Hides Device Manager Page NoConfigPage: Hides Hardware Profiles Page NoFileSysPage: Hides File System Button NoVirtMemPage: Hides Virtual Memory Button Similarly, if we create a new subkey named Network, we can add the following DWORD values under it(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option): NoNetSetupSecurityPage: Hides Network Security Page NoNelSetup: Hides or disables the Network option in the Control Panel NoNetSetupIDPage: Hides the Identification Page NoNetSetupSecurityPage: Hides the Access Control Page NoFileSharingControl: Disables File Sharing Controls NoPrintSharing: Disables Print Sharing Controls Similarly, if we create a new subkey named WinOldApp, we can add the following DWORD values under it(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option) NoNetHood: Hides or removes the Network Neighborhood icon from the desktop NoDesktop: Hides all items including, file, folders and system folders from the Desktop NoClose: Disables Shutdown and prevents the user from normally shutting down Windows.