2012-11-25 17:22:10 +02:00

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Interesting things to do with Windows
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<p>You can do interesting things with Windows 8 and 7. For example you can tether your connection to other devices without installing 3rd party software, enable Administrator account etc.</p>
<h2 id="removing-password-without-administrator-access.">Removing password without Administrator access.</h2>
<p>This can be done easily with <a href="http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/">ntpasswd</a>. It also has other features, but I only recommend using the &quot;blank password&quot; / &quot;remove password&quot; function as it's the most working one. This feature should work with Windows XP too, but I have only tried it with 7 and 8.</p>
<p>I don't type usage instructions here, because <a href="http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/">ntpasswd</a> has enough good documentation and it's easy to use anyway.</p>
<h2 id="enabling-administrator-account">Enabling Administrator account</h2>
<p>Administrator is <em>root (Linux/Mac/*NIX SuperUser) of Windows</em>. Some people prefer to be able to login as root/Administrator directly in emmergency or if they need to do something as root quickly.</p>
<p>To enable this account open cmd.exe as Administrator.</p>
<p>Windows 8: You can do this by going to ModernUI by pressing Windows button or activating the hot corner on bottom left. Then start typing (or type) &quot;cmd&quot;, right click &quot;Command Prompt&quot; which appears and select &quot;Run as Administrator&quot;.</p>
<p>Windows 7: Open Start menu by pressing Windows button or by clicking the start menu. Then start searching for &quot;cmd&quot; and you should receive result &quot;cmd.exe&quot; or &quot;Command Prompt&quot;. Right click it and select &quot;run as Administrator&quot;.</p>
<p>Now you are on cmd.exe which is running as Administrator. Next you must find out what is the Administrator account called. It depends on which language Windows was originally installed.</p>
<p>With English installation the Administrator account is &quot;Administrator&quot; and in Finnish installation &quot;Järjestelmänvalvoja&quot;. You can see the list of users including Administrator by running</p>
<pre><code>net user</code></pre>
<p>(Todo: add example output).</p>
<p>Now you should know the name of Administrator account and you can enable it running:</p>
<pre><code>net user Administrator /active:yes</code></pre>
<p>Where you replace &quot;Administrator&quot; with the account which is Administrator in &quot;net user&quot; e.g. Järjestelmänvalvoja. If you want to disable it, simply change &quot;/active:yes&quot; to &quot;/active no&quot;.</p>
<p><strong>Administrator doesn't have password set by default</strong> so now go to Control Panel and Users. Select &quot;manage other user&quot; and then select &quot;Administrator&quot; and set password for it.</p>
<p>If you cannot think any password for it, you can use same password as with your own account in emmergency like <a href="http://linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint</a> is doing. It uses the password of the user which was created in installation as root password. With <a href="http://ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> root account is disabled by default and it can be enabled by running &quot;sudo passwd root&quot; and setting password.</p>
<p><strong>You must set password for Administrator, because that account can do everything without User Access Control (UAC) prompts!</strong></p>
<p>Remember also to not use the Administrator account for general use.</p>
<h2 id="tethering-connection-without-3rd-party-tools">Tethering connection without 3rd party tools</h2>
<p>This can be done with netsh, but the network doesn't have connection to internet at first.</p>
<p>First open cmd.exe as Administrator (activating administrator account). This requires normal user with administrator rights.</p>
<p>First allow tethering to be used and set SSID and password and start the network.</p>
<pre><code>netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=mynetwork key=mypassword
netsh wlan start hostednetwork</code></pre>
<p>NOTE: If you get error about missing svchost service or something else, press Windows + R and run &quot;services&quot; and enable &quot;Wireless autoconfiguration&quot; or something like that.</p>
<p>NOTE2: If you get other error, disable the network card in adapter settings and enable it again. Then run &quot;netsh wlan start hostednetwork again&quot;.</p>
<p>NOTE3: If nothing helps, run &quot;netsh wlan show drivers&quot; and ensure that your network card supports hosted/virtual networks.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://superuser.com/a/308692">superuser user Soumya</a> it's not possible to have open hosted network :(.</p>
<iframe src="https://openwireless.org/widget/150x196/" width="150" height="196" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<h3 id="getting-internet-access-to-the-new-network.">Getting internet access to the new network.</h3>
<p>Right click the network icon on the taskbar and select &quot;open network and sharing center&quot;. Then select &quot;change adapter settings&quot; in the window which opens and right click the connection which you want to share. Click properties and then &quot;Sharing&quot;.</p>
<p>Share the connection using your new network which is something like &quot;Wireless Local Area Connection 2&quot; and uncheck &quot;let others manage this connection&quot;, but remember to keep &quot;let other users access the internet using this connection&quot; checked. Then click &quot;OK&quot; or &quot;apply&quot; and your tethered network has internet access.</p>
<p>To see devices which are currently connected to the network, run</p>
<pre><code>netsh wlan show hostednetwork</code></pre>
<p>The hosted network gets disabled on reboot, but you can enable it again by running &quot;netsh wlan start hostednetwork&quot; (as administrator). You don't need to do anything else, it remembers the shared network connection.</p>
<h2 id="automatic-login-without-regedit">Automatic login without regedit</h2>
<p>Of course, it's possible to set autologin with regedit too, but in my opinion this way is much faster.</p>
<p>Press Windows + R and then run</p>
<pre><code>control userpassswords2</code></pre>
<p>Then select user <strong>which is not Administrator</strong> from the list and check the &quot;Users don't need passwords to login&quot; above.</p>
<h2 id="disabling-windows-8-modern-ui">Disabling Windows 8 Modern UI</h2>
<p>Some people like the new Modern UI (me) and some hate it (my brother). It can be disabled easily by installing <a href="https://www.pokki.com/">Pokki</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pokki.com/">Pokki</a> is Start Menu for Windows 8 which also has options to login directly to desktop (without seeing Modern UI) and disable hot corners. Pokki also includes inbuild application store where you can <em>get hundreds of free applications.</em></p>
<p>First download <a href="https://www.pokki.com/">Pokki</a> and when you see the start menu, right click it and set the settings you want (boot to desktop &amp; disable hot corners).</p>
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