Microsoft ensured that the Windows 7 development milestone delivered at the Professional Developers Conference 2008 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2008 delivered less than what it showcased at the two events. 

Before patching. backup these files into some folder.

• \Windows\System32\ieframe.dll
• \Windows\System32\TabletPC.cpl
• \Windows\System32\themecpl.dll
• \Windows\System32\themeui.dll
• \Windows\Explorer.exe
• \Windows\System32\powercfg.cpl
• \Windows\System32\wisptis.exe
• \Windows\System32\shell32.dll
• \Windows\System32\stobject.dll

Please keep in mind this tool is not affiliated, sponsored, supported by, written by, or endorsed by Microsoft Corporation.




You can download this application from the following link.


http://rapidshare.com/files/163599090/unlock_win7__x86.zip

Two Swiss researchers have demonstrated, in James Bond-like experiments, that sniffing the keystrokes from a wired keyboard is possible by capturing the electromagnetic radiations that are emitted when the keys are pressed. The researchers devised four methods of attack, one of which successfully decodes the pressed keys from a distance up to 20 meters, through an office wall, with a rather simple wireless antenna.

The knowledge that computer systems generate compromising emanations or Tempest radiation is dated back to the 1960s, the military organizations being the first to run tests with it. However, it was believed that modern wired keyboards had been constructed in order to overcome this problem. Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini, two researchers from the Security and Cryptography Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, set out to prove that many keyboards sold today are still vulnerable to this type of attacks.

One of their attack techniques has been based on a previous more generic research by Markus G. Kuhn and Ross J. Anderson, from the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. This technique is already known in the security industry as the Kuhn attack. The two Swiss researchers have used in their test 11 different wired keyboards, USB and PS2, external and embedded in laptops, which were bought after 2001. All of the tested keyboards have been found vulnerable to at least one of the four attacks.


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Microsoft will launch the final version of the server OS at a February 27th event in Los Angeles which the company is calling ‘Heroes Happen Here,’ . Also to be unveiled is Microsoft SQL Server 2008…

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• Microsoft: Vista's 'Black Screen of Death' Is a Hoax
  Ignore the link from yesterday to this story, looks like it's not true.
  (tags: PR Hack Piracy )
• Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates
  If your Vista isn't genuine, you may be headed to the dark side soon!
  (tags: Legal )

First let me start by saying that one of the main features of Windows Vista is the new user accounts security enhancements, but sometimes, defaults don’t meet everyone’s taste when it comes to how we deal with our PCs. I for one, always used full administrator accounts since I first knew what a Windows user account is, and never been hit by a virus/spyware/crap, using common sense and updated AV software, so I don’t want to give permissions to myself or face strange error messages every time I do a simple task on my computer.

We know UAC feature in Windows Vista, and we all know how to disable it, this is not the purpose of this thread, because even after you disable UAC, you’ll have other prompts about folder/file permissions errors sometimes (I faced it in strange, unexpected occasions, like deleting an empty folder for a program left by the uninstaller), or you’ll need to right click and select “Run as Administrator” for most applications to work/install correctly.

That’s because Microsoft made the administrators accounts (in local administrators group) run as standard users, unless we give permissions for every and each administrative tasks, with a little difference when UAC is turned on/off

Enough introductions, lets get our hands dirty:

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Remember that cute “Administrator” account you see when you login to safe mode in XP? That’s the built-in administrator account that’s installed by default, and disabled by default too, after a little digging-in I made this tutorial that’ll let you enable and use this account in normal mode, and with a little other tweak, enjoying an XP-like administrator experience, while UAC is left ON (or off, it doesn’t matter), but with no prompts or right clicks.

For Windows Vista Ultimate/Business/Enterprise:

1- Click Start, and type “secpol.msc” in the search area and click Enter. (You may receive a prompt from UAC, approve/login and proceed)
2- In the left list, choose “Local Policies“, then “Security Options“
3- Set “Accounts: Administrator account status” to Enabled.
4- Set “User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account” to Disabled.

For Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium:

1- Click Start, and type “cmd” in the search area, right click on “Command Prompt” and select ‘Run as Administrator“.

2- In the command prompt type “net users Administrator /active:yes” (Note the capital “A” in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as “The command completed successfully”.

3- Click Start, and type “regedit” in the search area and click Enter, navigate to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
Double click on “FilterAdministratorToken” and set it to “0“

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Now log-off, and you’ll see new account named “Administrator” is available, click on it to login.

Now you are the master of your domain! I recommend if you’re going to use this method is to apply it as soon as you do a fresh install of Windows, so you can simply delete whatever administrator you’ve created in the setup process, and make this one the “real” administrator for your PC, also you can rename this new admin account or change its password like any other account from “User Accounts” in the Control Panel.

A last note/disclaimer:

Please note that disabling UAC and using the built in Adminstrator account will also disable IE7 “Protected Mode”.

Please apply this procedures only if you know what you’re doing. Disabling security features in the operating system is not something recommended to the average Joe, and for sure I won’t be held accountable for any damaging happens to your system or files resulting from running a full administrator account all the time.

Enjoy!