Speedup Operating System Installation And Maintainance

Save yourself time by making Windows installation files available on your hard drive.

We know you've had this problem: you install a new mouse, change a network setting, do almost anything that upsets the delicate balance in Windows and you're prompted to insert the Windows so-and-so CD. Where is it? Did you grab the right one?

If you have a lot of free disk space (about 700 MB), take a cue from the major PC makers and copy the files from your Windows CD to your hard drive. In fact, it's not a bad idea to copy the files before you install Windows so the resulting installation automatically knows where to find the files later—thus no prompting to insert a CD later.


PC manufacturers have typically placed the Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and Me files in a C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS folder, and Windows NT, 2000 or XP files into C:\i386.

You can emulate this pattern for Windows 9x-Me by creating these folders on your hard drive from a DOS prompt, then copying the files from the CD (assuming this is drive D:) as follows, from the A:\> DOS prompt:

A:\>C:

C:\>MD WINDOWS C:\>MD

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS C:\>MD

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS C:\>CD

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS C:\

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>COPY

D:\WIN98\*.*


Start the Windows installation from this folder by typing:

C:\ \WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>SETUP

For Windows NT-XP:

A:\>C: C:\>MD

i386 C:\>CD i386

C:\I386>COPY D:\i386\*.*


Start the Windows installation from this folder by running this command:

C:\I386>WINNT


The next time Windows needs a file from the installation CD it will automatically look in the appropriate folder, copy the file, and move on.

Read More

How To Password Protect Your Linux Box (OS) With GRUB

GRUB, the Only bootloader for Linux OS, as NTLDR works in windows..

here , the basic idea for Securing the Linux box wiht GRUB is, we implies sum security on GRUB itself..The MOst basic Phase in Loading Of An Operating System.

 

However , Gettin bypassed with GRUb is also not that much difficult, its as easy as Burning a MATCH STICk, bt guys, i wud tell u that somehow later.

So wt the basic idea is, If you don't want someone booting your machine without permission, you can add a password to your GRUB entries. You can add a password only to specific entries if you wish; this will require a user to enter a password before loading only those boot entries you protect. This can be useful when done on your Recovery Mode entries, which bring up a passwordless root login by default.

To get started, let's first encrypt the password we want to use. Open up a terminal and enter the grub command. This brings up a grub shell. In this shell, enter the md5crypt command. When prompted, type in the password you want on your grub entries. (Don't worry, this won't write anything to your files!) After pressing Enter, you will be given an encrypted password string. Copy the string to your clipboard. Enter quit to exit the grub shell and return to bash.

Code:

GNU GRUB  version 0.95  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

 [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
   lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
   completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> md5crypt

Password: *************
Encrypted: $1$w7Epf0$vX6rxpozznLAVxZGkcFcs.

grub>

Now that we have an encrypted password, it's time to add it to grub. Using sudo, open up /boot/grub/menu.lst using your favorite text editor.

 

Note : if ur version of linux Box does not Encrypts password as such, Then you may have to Copy The encrypted passwrd frm the Shadow Fiel..(If U r having this case, do ask me, n i wud tell u the whole game IN step wise step manner)
After the "initrd" line for each entry you want to password protect, start a new line beginning with password --md5 and paste in your newly-encrypted password. Using the above example password on the i386 recovery entry, this:

Code:

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.8.1-2-386 (recovery mode)
        root (hd1,2)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-2-386 root=/dev/hdb3 ro single
        initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8.1-2-386

Becomes this:

Code:

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.8.1-2-386 (recovery mode)
        root (hd1,2)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-2-386 root=/dev/hdb3 ro single
        initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8.1-2-386
        password --md5 $1$w7Epf0$vX6rxpozznLAVxZGkcFcs.

You must add such a line after every entry you want to password protect. As I mentioned earlier, I password protected my recovery mode entries out of sheer paranoia.

Save the file, and reboot. (The first time you try this, I suggest only doing it to one entry so you can test it to make sure it works, and you can still use another entry to boot your machine in case something went wrong.)

For a bit of added peace of mind, you can prevent everyone except root from reading /boot/grub/menu.lst by doing:

Code:

sudo chmod 600 /boot/grub/menu.lst

______________________________________________________________________________

Thats it u r finished with it.

Hopes u enjoy this., have fun. Enjoy Hacking.. Enjoy

Read More

Disable XP Boot Logo

It is possible to disable the XP splash screen, which will slightly speed up the overall boot process. Be aware that removing the splash screen will also cause you not to see any boot-up messages that might come up(chkdsk, convert ... ), but if your system runs without any problems then it should not matter.

· Edit boot.ini.

· Add " /noguiboot" right after "/fastdetect".

Upon restarting, the splash screen will be gone. It can be re-enabled by removing the new switch.

Read More

Set Windows Logon Wallpaper

Logon wallpaper is the wallpaper or image that windows shows on screen when windows logs on (before it asks for username & password) . It’s usually set to the image-logo of the brand of our computer (e.g. in compaq laptops). If you are get tired of watching that wallpaper then now this is right trick for you jaust follow these steps and set it to our own image or any other image(any bmp file)

1) Open Startmenu->Run type regedit and press ok to open registry editor.

2) In registry editor window , In hierarchical structure in left, navigate to registry entry

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

3) In right side pane see a number of values placed in a table format. choose the value named Wallpaper from there and double click it.

4) Now you see a box with value name as Wallpaper and value data as Path to the image file .

5) There give the full path of the image(bmp file) which you want to set as logon wallpaper by deleting previous path and writing path to your bmp file e.g. C:\WINDOWS\me.BMP (to set image me.BMP file as log on wall paper).

Also double click on WallpaperStyle and change it’s value to 2 to get a stretched wallpaper at logon.

Put that bmp file in windows directory for better results.

If that is a jpeg file, convert to bmp file by opening in Windows Image Viewer and save as bmp.

Read More

Disable XP Boot Logo

It is possible to disable the XP splash screen, which will slightly speed up the overall boot process. Be aware that removing the splash screen will also cause you not to see any boot-up messages that might come up(chkdsk, convert ... ), but if your system runs without any problems then it should not matter.

· Edit boot.ini.

· Add " /noguiboot" right after "/fastdetect".

Upon restarting, the splash screen will be gone. It can be re-enabled by removing the new switch.

Read More