With so many cracking tools coming up to break windows password, it’s very difficult to protect your personal computer from unauthorized access. Even BIOS password is easy to crack. Nothing is secure and safe these days.
Now no more worries, I just found a simple trick by which you can easily protect your windows from unwanted usage. This really cool and hidden feature of Windows lets you maintain your privacy of data on your computer even if you are not around.
What it does is that it adds an extra secret key along with your windows password. So when your computer is started, it first asks for the secret key and then the windows password. Windows password can easily be hacked but you cannot get around this secret key which we will be going to store in a removable devices such as USB drive etc.
Here goes the step-by-step procedure for achieving an extra level of protection.
1.) Open run dialog box.
2.) Type SYSKEY and click OK.
3.) Check the Encryption Enabled radio button.
4.) Click on Update.
5.) Under System Generated Password choose Store Startup Key on Floppy Disk.
(Now many of you must be thinking that this tutorial is waste. Where in the hell should be get Floppy no? Don’t worry; you don’t require any Floppies for this. Just insert your USB device and change its Drive Letter to A:\. I am using my IPOD shuffle for this purpose. You can use your Pen Drive. Read further to learn how to change Drive Letters.)
6.) After you have inserted your USB device, right click My Computer -> Manage -> Storage -> Disk Management.
7.) Now you will see all storage volumes there. Choose your USB volume, right click on it and select option Change Drive Letters and Paths…
8.) From the long list of available drive letters choose A:\.
9.) Now return back to SYSKEY, choose Startup Key on Floppy Disk and click OK.
10.) No 10th Step. You are done.
The next time you start your computer, you’ll have to insert this USB device when asked and then only you can login to your account. You can also see a registry file named StartKey stored in your USB device.
I am still looking for the possible ways to login to my personal computer just in case if my IPOD (USB device) is broken or unavailable. If you have idea to break this protection, please share that with us. It will be useful as well.
Rakshit: very nice trick. Looks you are really after enhancing security these days
. But I think it will be a chore to insert USB key when you need to login every time.
@Jawwad
Actually in hostel everyone can use my laptop whenever required. So every now and then I keep on experimenting things to protect my important stuffs.
It’s a bit tedious to insert USB device every time you start your system, but you got to compromise something to gain something.
good way to increase your security!!keep it up rakshit!
Good post. I just came to your blog when I saw you on my blog (Mybloglog widget).
Well you can have a Face Recognition software (if you have a webcam)or a finger print reader (next time you buy a lappy).
Welcome to “Aarambh”, buddy.
Ashfame, I am seriously looking forward to have those inbuilt in my next laptop.
Hi, i have used Syskey on Floppy for years on customer Laptops. In january this year a customer wanted to use syskey (on XP) without a floppy. I have done exactly the same you mentioned here but used USBDLM for mounting the USB devices to the drive letter A.
USBDLM: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html
I configured, that a usb-drive with a specific name should always be mounted to A, all others from G to J.
So you can make a backup to another usb-stick, change the name to force the mount to A and use it in case of a broken or lost device.
My concern is:
if a usb-device is attached before a user is logged on to the machine and this specific device was not plugged in bevore on this machine, would it mount properly?
This problem occured a few days ago:
We used Pretec iDisk Diamond sticks. They are very small and handy. We also used the type with 128MB, mainly for preventing to use the Device for other purposes as the logon process.
Now we had following issues:
The customer told me that he cannot log on to his laptop. The displayed message tells “syskey not found on drive A. Please insert disk” (Translation from german XP). I told him to use his backup-Stick (which was created on the same machine a few weeks ago) and he was able to logon. For investigation purposes i told him to plug in the “primary stick”. When he plugged it windows reacted like it was a “new-and-never-bevore-plugged-in-device”.
Messages with installing drivers and “device can now be used” appeared.
The next reboot, the “primary stick” worked again without problems…so far.
Any ideas what happened here?
:O i never knew that, nice tip will be enough useful
keep up the good work
This technique is really useful if you seriously want to protect your system. Stay Tuned for more of those similar tips.
Thanks for your comments.
Nice tutorial.. bookmarking it now. I’m making a post about best security tutorial, I might link you to it!
nice trick man u r realy rocking……..
Is there a way I can get an application like Notepad ++ to completely replace and overrun the default text editing software in windows. So much so that even if I type “Notepad” in the run dialog box….I’d like it to bring up Notepad ++ and not the default notepad. Am I asking for too much?
Hi .. ! I come to your website and find amazing tricks .. but unfortunately i dont have admin password, so i cant even start SYSKEY .. what should i do .. ?
i am very happy to read your tips
awesome! i did it! but what if i wanted to get rid of it?
really good trick but inserting pendrive in every boot is quite difficult ……….and if pendrive gets lost ,then their is no chance to open it.
ok .good trick try few more.