Microsoft said: “You can connect up to 10 monitors to your Windows XP-based computer and display numerous programs or windows at one time. You can use your mouse to move items from one monitor to another. You can open a different file on each monitor. Or several. Or you can stretch one item across several monitors; so for example, you can see more columns in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or the entire layout of a Web page, without scrolling.” Consider it. Monitors and PCI video cards are pretty cheap now. Windows recognizes the addition & allows easy adjustments on the ‘Display Properties/Settings’ menu.

16.Save Streaming Media.

17.Securing the Paging File.

If you’re truly concerned about the possibility of your computer falling into the wrong hands, you should be sure that you don’t leave any tracks in the paging file. By default, when you shut down your system, the paging file remains intact. People who’ve access to your computer could conceivably look through the unencrypted paging file to find information they shouldn’t have.

18.Assign a Keyboard Shortcut.

Click in the Shortcut Key field and press a keyboard combination that you want to use for launching or switching to this program. The shortcut key you assign must consist of one character key (a letter, number, or symbol) plus at least two of the following three keys: Ctrl, Alt, and Shift. (If you press a character key only, Windows automatically adds Ctrl+Alt.)

Shortcut keys work only when assigned to a program shortcut on the Start menu, the Programs menu, or the Desktop. The shortcuts you define will not work if it conflicts with a combination used in the program whose window has the focus.

Please remember, we cannot accept responsibility with what you decide to do with these tips. These tips act as a guide to tweaking and changing Windows XP from the default settings. If you are unsure about how to make these changes then don’t meddle !

Are you having trouble connecting to other computers on your local area network? If your network uses a hardware firewall that assigns IP addresses to each machine and you’re certain you’ve configured all other components correctly, check to see whether the Internet Connection Firewall is enabled. That component can effectively block communication between PCs on the network.

13.Hack IE Title Bar.

This can be an impressive bit of personalization. Use your name or moniker to brand Internet Explorer. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ and left-click on Main to change the string “Window Title” to whatever you wish.

14.Unload DLLs.

To prevent Windows from caching DLLs after the program using them has closed, follow this procedure: Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ then left-click on Explorer. Right-click (as above) and create the DWORD

AlwaysUnloadDLL with a value of 1. This requires a reboot to take effect. This will allow memory to be used more efficiently.

As laptop users and other LCD owners are quickly realizing, Microsoft’s ClearType technology in Windows XP really makes a big difference for readability. But the this feature is enabled on a per-user basis in Windows XP, so you can’t see the effect on the Welcome screen; it only appears after you logon.

But you can fix that. Fire up the Registry Editor and look for the following keys:

(default user) HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothing (String Value) HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothingType (Hexadecimal DWORD Value)

Make sure both of these values are set to 2 and you’ll have ClearType enabled on the Welcome screen and on each new user by default.

In Windows 2000, Microsoft added the ability to right-click the My Documents folder and choose a new location for that folder in the shell. With Windows XP, Microsoft has elevated the My Music and

y Pictures folders to the same “special shell folder” status of My Documents, but they never added a similar (and simple) method for changing those folder’s locations. However, it is actually pretty easy to change the location of these folders, using the following method.

Open a My Computer window and navigate to the location where you’d like My Music (or My Pictures) to reside. Then, open the My Documents folder in a different window. Drag the My Music (or My Pictures) folder to the other window, and Windows XP will update all of the references to that folder to the new location, including the Start menu.

11.  Protect Your Files From Unauthorized Users.

Other users with permission to delete a file (users with Modify or Full Control permission) can’t use your encrypted files-but they can make them difficult for you to use. Any such user can rename your files, which can make them difficult to find, and can also delete your files. (Even if the user merely deletes them to the Recycle Bin and doesn’t remove them altogether, the deleted files are unavailable to you because you don’t have access to any other user’s Recycle Bin.) Therefore, if you’re concerned about protecting your files from other authorized users as well as from a thief who steals your computer, you should modify the NTFS permissions to prevent any type of modification by other users.

12.  Shutdown Your System in a Hurry.

If you need to shut down in a hurry-or if a frozen application prevents you from shutting down in the normal ways-you can use the following procedure. Be aware, however, that you won’t get an opportunity to save open documents. To perform an emergency shutdown, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to display Task Manager. Open the Shut down menu and hold down the Ctrl key as you click the Turn Off command. Poof! If your computer is part of a domain, the procedure is similar. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and then hold down Ctrl when you click Shut Down. In this situation, you’ll get a warning message pointing out-quite correctly-that this should be used only as a last resort.

The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

6.Rename multiple files at once.

You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetized groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In-Groups.

7.Show cover art in Media Player.
windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

8.Display Hibernate Option on the Shut Down dialog.

For some reason, Hibernate isn’t available from the default Shut Down dialog. But you can enable it simply enough, by holding down the SHIFT key while the dialog is visible. Now you see it, now you don’t!

1.Lock XP Workstation.

You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

2.Remove Windows XP system software.

XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5.Kill tasks from the command line.

You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.

6.Enable ClearType by default.

XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology– but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry

HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/ControlPanel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

Hi, Here’s Another Alternate to The Other Post – “Hack Windows XP Password”

Another method to login to a password protected Windows even if you do not have the password is by making Windows accepting any passwords.
There is a far better way to get into

Windows XP. It is easy and it does not reset the password. Hack into a computer running Windows XP without changing the password and find out all and any passwords on the machine (including admin accounts). You do not need access to any accounts to do this. Of course, do not do this on anyone elses computer without proper authorisation.
Steps to Hack into a Windows XP Computer without changing password:1. Get physical access to the machine. Remember that it must have a CD or DVD drive.
2. Download DreamPackPL HERE.
3. Unzip the downloaded dpl.zip and you’ll get dpl.ISO.
4. Use any burning program that can burn ISO images.
5. After you have the disk, boot from the CD or DVD drive. You will see Windows 2000 Setup and it will load some files.
6. Press “R” to install DreamPackPL.
7. Press “C” to install DreamPackPL by using the recovery console.
8. Select the Windows installation that is currently on the computer (Normally is “1″ if you only have one Windows installed)
9. Backup your original sfcfiles.dll by typing:
“ren C:WindowsSystem32sfcfiles.dll sfcfiles.lld” (without quotes)
10. Copy the hacked file from CD to system32 folder. Type:
“copy D:i386pinball.ex_ C:WindowsSystem32sfcfiles.dll” (without quotes and assuming your CD drive is D
11. Type “exit”, take out disk and reboot.
12. In the password field, type “dreamon” (without quotes) and DreamPack menu will appear.
13. Click the top graphic on the DreamPack menu and you will get a menu popup.

14. Go to commands and enable the options and enable the god command.

15. Type “god” in the password field to get in Windows.You can also go to Passwords and select “Logon with wrong password and hash”. This option allows you to login with ANY password.

Note: I was unable to bring up the DreamPackPL for the first time because I have Kaspersky Anti-Virus already running in background. I believe most antivirus already labelled this tool as a Hack-Tool. A Hack-Tool is NOT a virus. DreamPackPL helps you bypass the Windows Login screen and it is not destructive

Now open keyfinder.exe Click on options and click “change windows key”Now enter this key and you’re done.*******************************************************V2C47-MK7JD-3R89F-D2KXW-VPK3J*******************************************************

I think everyone has heard of this one, recently evolved into the 4.x series.

Nmap (”Network Mapper”) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free and open source.

Can be used by beginners (-sT) or by pros alike (–packet_trace). A very versatile tool, once you fully understand the results.

Get Nmap Here

2. Nessus Remote Security Scanner

Recently went closed source, but is still essentially free. Works with a client-server framework.

Nessus is the world’s most popular vulnerability scanner used in over 75,000 organizations world-wide. Many of the world’s largest organizations are realizing significant cost savings by using Nessus to audit business-critical enterprise devices and applications.

Get Nessus Here

3. John the Ripper

Yes, JTR 1.7 was recently released!

John the Ripper is a fast password cracker, currently available for many flavors of Unix (11 are officially supported, not counting different architectures), DOS, Win32, BeOS, and OpenVMS. Its primary purpose is to detect weak Unix passwords. Besides several crypt(3) password hash types most commonly found on various Unix flavors, supported out of the box are Kerberos AFS and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 LM hashes, plus several more with contributed patches.

You can get JTR Here

4. Nikto

Nikto is an Open Source (GPL) web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 3200 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, versions on over 625 servers, and version specific problems on over 230 servers. Scan items and plugins are frequently updated and can be automatically updated (if desired).

Nikto is a good CGI scanner, there are some other tools that go well with Nikto (focus on http fingerprinting or Google hacking/info gathering etc, another article for just those).

Get Nikto Here

5. SuperScan

Powerful TCP port scanner, pinger, resolver. SuperScan 4 is an update of the highly popular Windows port scanning tool, SuperScan.

If you need an alternative for nmap on Windows with a decent interface, I suggest you check this out, it’s pretty nice.

Get SuperScan Here

6. p0f

P0f v2 is a versatile passive OS fingerprinting tool. P0f can identify the operating system on:

- machines that connect to your box (SYN mode),
- machines you connect to (SYN+ACK mode),
- machine you cannot connect to (RST+ mode),
- machines whose communications you can observe.

Basically it can fingerprint anything, just by listening, it doesn’t make ANY active connections to the target machine.

Get p0f Here

7. Wireshark (Formely Ethereal)

Wireshark is a GTK+-based network protocol analyzer, or sniffer, that lets you capture and interactively browse the contents of network frames. The goal of the project is to create a commercial-quality analyzer for Unix and to give Wireshark features that are missing from closed-source sniffers.

Works great on both Linux and Windows (with a GUI), easy to use and can reconstruct TCP/IP Streams! Will do a tutorial on Wireshark later.

Get Wireshark Here

8. Yersinia

Yersinia is a network tool designed to take advantage of some weakeness in different Layer 2 protocols. It pretends to be a solid framework for analyzing and testing the deployed networks and systems. Currently, the following network protocols are implemented: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), IEEE 802.1q, Inter-Switch Link Protocol (ISL), VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP).

The best Layer 2 kit there is.

Get Yersinia Here

9. Eraser

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS. Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.

An excellent tool for keeping your data really safe, if you’ve deleted it..make sure it’s really gone, you don’t want it hanging around to bite you in the ass.

Get Eraser Here.

10. PuTTY

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. A must have for any h4×0r wanting to telnet or SSH from Windows without having to use the crappy default MS command line clients.

Get PuTTY Here.

11. LCP

Main purpose of LCP program is user account passwords auditing and recovery in Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. Accounts information import, Passwords recovery, Brute force session distribution, Hashes computing.

A good free alternative to L0phtcrack.

LCP was briefly mentioned in our well read Rainbow Tables and RainbowCrack article.

Get LCP Here

12. Cain and Abel

My personal favourite for password cracking of any kind.

Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It allows easy recovery of various kind of passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols. The program does not exploit any software vulnerabilities or bugs that could not be fixed with little effort.

Get Cain and Abel Here

13. Kismet

Kismet is an 802.11 layer2 wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system. Kismet will work with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring (rfmon) mode, and can sniff 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g traffic.

A good wireless tool as long as your card supports rfmon (look for an orinocco gold).

Get Kismet Here

14. NetStumbler

Yes a decent wireless tool for Windows! Sadly not as powerful as it’s Linux counterparts, but it’s easy to use and has a nice interface, good for the basics of war-driving.

NetStumbler is a tool for Windows that allows you to detect Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) using 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g. It has many uses:

Verify that your network is set up the way you intended.
Find locations with poor coverage in your WLAN.
Detect other networks that may be causing interference on your network.
Detect unauthorized “rogue” access points in your workplace.
Help aim directional antennas for long-haul WLAN links.
Use it recreationally for WarDriving.
Get NetStumbler Here

15. hping

To finish off, something a little more advanced if you want to test your TCP/IP packet monkey skills.

hping is a command-line oriented TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer. The interface is inspired to the ping unix command, but hping isn’t only able to send ICMP echo requests. It supports TCP, UDP, ICMP and RAW-IP protocols, has a traceroute mode, the ability to send files between a covered channel, and many other features.

Get help Here

Source:http://www.darknet.org.uk/2006/04/top-15-securityhacking-tool