HACKING WINDOWS

Hacking Tips

HACKING WINDOWS

******Changing the default launch Application******

1. Open up My Computer by clicking the desktop icon or on the icon in the Start panel.2. When you have My Computer displayed on your screen, click the Tools menu bar item
and select Folder Options.3. Once the Folder Options window appears, click the File Types tab.4. Navigate through the list of file extensions until you find the extension of the file for
which you want to change the default application. Because I want to change my MP3 player default launch application , I am going to select the MP3 file extension.When you find the file extension that you want to change, select it by clicking it.5. Click the Change button once you have your extension selected, The Open With properties window will load, asking you what program to load it with. It will show a list of common programs that you can choose from, but you are not limited to just those programs. Click the Browse button to navigate to any executable file on your computer to specify exactly what program you want to use if it is not on the list.6. Once you have the application selected that you want to use, just click the OK button to save your changes. You are now finished with changing the launch application.

******Removing items from the context menu******

1. Start up the Registry Editor by clicking the Start button and selecting Run. Then type
regedit in the box and click OK.2. When the Registry Editor appears, expand the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT folder. You
will now see a list of every file type that is set up on your computer.3. If the entry that you want to remove from the context menu appears in all context menus, such as the preceding Picozip example, you will have to expand the * folder.4. Now that you have the correct folder expanded, expand the Shellex and ContextMenu
Handlers folders. Your registry path should look like HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\
shellex\ContextMenuHandlers.5. Look through the list until you find the entry that you want to remove. Right-click the
folder of the entry and select Delete. You will find that identifying some of the programs
is easy. For example, Picozip is labeled Picozip. However, you may run into some items
that are listed using their application ID number or a vague name. If that is the case,
copy (Ctrl C) the application ID, which is formatted like this—{XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX-
XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}—to the clipboard. You may have to expand the folder to see the ID. Then, once you have the ID copied to the clipboard, press Ctrl+F to bring up the Search box in regedit and paste the ID in the box. Next, just click Find and you should be able to find some other references to that same ID in your registry that also might give you some clues to what it is. If that does not work, try doing a search on Google to see if that turns up anything.6. Once you are finished removing all of the entries from your context menus, just close
Registry Editor and you are finished. Your changes will be in effect immediately.

******Revealing the super hidden files******

Revealing the super hidden system files is not very difficult at all. You can uncheck the boxon the list on the View tab of Folder Options, but where is the fun in that? Use the Registry Editor to turn this feature off:1. Click the Start button and select Run.2. Type regedit in the box and click OK to start up the Editor.3. Once regedit appears, navigate through HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.
4. Right-click ShowSuperHidden and select Modify.5. Change the value to 1 and click OK to save your changes.Now you will be able to see all of the files on your computer, including the super hidden system files.

******Fine-Tuning ClearType******

If you do not have ClearType enabled, follow these steps to get it turned on:
1. Right-click the desktop and select Properties.2. Click the Effects button on the Appearance tab.
3. In the second drop-down box, select ClearType under Use The Following Method To
Smooth The Edges Of The Screen Fonts.
4. Click OK to save your changes.
5. Select OK once more to close Display Properties and to apply the new settings.Now that you have ClearType turned on, it’s time to fine-tune its settings. Some users
complain that the new ClearType feature causes the text on their screen to look a little blurrycompared to standard font smoothing. ClearType was designed to smooth the fonts on the screen replacing jagged edges. If you are one of the users that do not like how ClearType looks,with the help of a very cool online tool, you can customize how ClearType looks. Using the online tool that is developed by Microsoft, it is possible to change the darkness and thickness of the text. This will allow you to make the text that appears on your monitor look crisper.
Follow these steps to fine-tune your ClearType settings:
1. Open up Internet Explorer and browse to www.microsoft.com/typography/
cleartype/.

2. Navigate to the ClearType Web interface to fine-tune the settings located on the right
side of the Web page.

3. As the ClearType Web interface is loading, you will be prompted to install the
ClearType Tuning Control. Click Yes on your screen so that this component will be
installed.

4. On the step 1 screen, click Next to move to the next step, because you already have
ClearType started.

5. On step 2 of the ClearType Tuning Control, you have to select if your monitor uses a
red-green-blue (RGB) color scheme or a blue-green-red (BGR) scheme. All LCD computer
monitors are made up of very tiny vertical lines of alternating colors. There are two
different ways that monitors lay out the lines on the screen. Some monitors alternate red,green, and blue lines (RGB) on the screen, whereas other monitors alternate blue, green,and red lines (BGR). ClearType has recently been updated to also support the BGR
format, and now users that have BGR monitors can select this feature. Don’t know
which one to select? It’s easy; just select the option that looks sharper on your screen and then click Next.

6. On step 3, you will be shown six different settings that you can choose to fine-tune
ClearType. Just select the item that looks best to you and click Finish.

******Branding system properties******

1. There are two parts to branding your computer. The first part is creating an image to be displayed on the System Properties General tab. The image must be a bitmap and beno
larger than 180 *115 pixels. Once you have created your file, name it oemlogo.bmp
and save it in C:\Windows\System32 folder.2. Now that you have to get the logo out of the way, you will need to create a file withall of the text that you want to appear on the screen next to it.To do this, open up Notepad
and key in the following code.
[General]
Manufacturer=StevePC
Model=HighwaySpecial 18G
[Support Information]
Line1=No support is provided in English
Line2=Guaranteed to work for at least 5 days
Line3=87% restocking fee for all returns
Line4=Created by shahid3. Once you have your text in the right format, click the File menu bar item and select Save As.4. Save the file as oeminfo.ini in your C:\Windows\System32 folder. Make sure to
change the Save As file type to All Files instead of .txt so that the file is saved with the
correct file extension.If everything went well, the next time you look at the System Properties screen, you should see your new branding information.