WINDOWS REGISTRY HACKS PART 2

Hacking the Windows Registry continued...

THE PROBLEM 

 

    Hello guys, this is the second article on Windows Registry hacking. Here I will give you examples of some of the most common Windows Registry hacks and tweaks.

THE PRINCIPLE:

    If you are not yet familiar with the Windows Registry, please consider reading the first article of the series [here] before reading on. All the hacks that follow are fully functional and have been tested on Windows XP and Windows 7 (equally work on Windows Vista and Windows 8).

DISCLAIMER: I strongly recommend you NOT to run these hacks on your working computer, If you want to test them personally or modify them, consider setting up a Virtual Machine. Moreover, the content of this article is exclusively meant for educational purpose. Use the information provided at your own risk. Neither Computer Tips and Tricks nor its authors are responsible for what you do of this knowledge.

THE SOLUTION:   

 

Task Manager Hack 

     This basically consists in disabling/enabling the task manager of any Windows based computer.  The key in which we will apply modifications to perform the hack is

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.

  

Copy paste the 3 lines of text below in an empty file in notepad and save it as filename.reg where filename is any name of your choice.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"DisableTaskMgr"=dword:00000001

What this lines of code do basically is tell the OS to create a new dword value with name DisableTaskMgr and data value 1, as easy as that. Double clicking on this file will disable the Task Manager on that machine. To reanable the Task Manager, just change the value from 00000001 to 00000000 

 Command prompt (cmd) Hack 

    This consists in disabling/enabling the command prompt of any Windows based computer.  The key in which we will apply modifications to perform the hack is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System. 

Copy paste the 3 lines of text below in an empty file in notepad and save it as filename.reg where filename is any name of your choice.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System]

"DisableCMD"=dword:00000001

To reanable the command  prompt, just change the value from 00000001 to 00000000. To disable the command prompt but allow batch files to be run change the value from 00000001 or 00000000 to 00000002.

Registry Editor Hack 

    This is one of my favorite, after messing up with your victims computer use this one as the finishing move. After applying this hack, he will no longer be able to manually apply any modifications to the registry nor even to open the registry editor. (NOTE: There are other ways indeed to bypass this restriction, I will cover that in a future article :)).The key in which we will apply modifications to perform the hack is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System. 

Copy paste the 3 lines of text below in an empty file in notepad and save it as filename.reg where filename is any name of your choice.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]

"DisableRegistryTools"=dword:00000001 

Run Command  Hack

    This consists of disabling / enabling the ability to launch commands or processes from the Start menu by removing the Run option. The key in which we will apply modifications to perform the hack is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer to disable the run command for the actual user or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer to disable the run command for the whole system.  

Copy paste the 3 lines of text below in an empty file in notepad and save it as filename.reg where filename is any name of your choice.

NOTE: Log off or restart the computer for the change to take effect.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoRun"=dword:00000001

To re-anable the run command , just change the value from 00000001 to 00000000 then log off or restart the computer.

 Microsoft Management Console Hack (gpedit.msc)   

     

   gpedit is a feature of the Microsoft family of operating systems that control the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. Group Policy provides the centralized management and configuration of operating systems, applications, and users' settings in an Active Directory environment. In other words, It controls amongst other what users can and cannot do on a computer system. This is something you should definetly consider disable after using all the above hacks if you really want to mess up a computer, because any savvy computer user can re-enable all what we just hacked above and much more just by using this feature. The key in which we will apply modifications to perform the hack is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{8FC0B734-A0E1-11D1-A7D3-0000F87571E3}. 

Copy paste the 3 lines of text below in an empty file in notepad and save it as filename.reg where filename is any name of your choice.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{8FC0B734-A0E1-11D1-A7D3-0000F87571E3}]

"Restrict_Run"=dword:00000001

To reanable the gpedit.msc , just change the value from 00000001 to 00000000.

 

Temporary Files Cleaner Tweak

    Temporary files are created by running applications to store files while they work on them. Nevertheless the temporary file folder, if not cleaned on a regular basis can occupy tremendous amounts of space. By default, disk cleanup utilities only delete temporary files that are 7 days old. What if you want to delete all the temporary files at the end of each day? The key in which we will apply modifications to perform this tweak is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Temporary Files. 


 Copy paste the 3 lines of text below in an empty file in notepad and save it as filename.reg where filename is any name of your choice.



Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Temporary Files]
"LastAccess"=dword:00000001


To change, just modify the dword value. For example if I prefer it to delete files that are 3 days old, I should have 00000003 instead of 00000001.

Verbose boot messages Tweak

    This is a very handy tweak if you are the kind of computer guy that always wants to know what is the cause when things go wrong. This tweak enables verbose messages during the boot process which could help you identify with absolute precision which driver(s) or application(s) are responsible for slow boot and startup and to troubleshoot them. The key in which we will apply modifications to perform this tweak is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System  

Copy paste the 3 lines of text below in an empty file in notepad and save it as filename.reg where filename is any name of your choice.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]

"VerboseStatus"=dword:00000001

Click here to download all the above hacks (.reg files)

Hope it helps! Stay Tunned!

For any question, suggestion, remark, request or special query or to receive a copy of the source codes of the program, please leave a comment below with your request and email address or

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WINDOWS REGISTRY HACKS

How to hack the windows registry

 

THE PROBLEM:

 

What is the Windows Registry?

Why would I need to hack it?

How can I actually Hack it? 

THE PRINCIPLE:

     The Windows Registry, usually referred to as "the registry," is a hierarchical database that contains most (90%) of the important configuration information and settings about software programs, system hardware devices, user preferences, operating system configurations, and much more.

 Normally, you should not need to make any manual changes to the registry because programs and applications typically make all the necessary changes automatically. Furthermore, an incorrect change to your computer's registry could render your computer inoperable. However, by knowing how to hack into the windows registry you will also be able to secure a computer or to fix computers broken by hackers.

 

The Windows registry as a whole is a very broad topic, so this will not be a in depth class. Basically, I will show you how to find which registry key(s) you need to modify to perform a task of your choice, then how to change that knowledge into a hack. To conclude, I will give some examples of the most common registry hacks such as enabling/disabling the task manager, enabling/disabling the command prompt and much more...

Enough of talking, now let’s do some hacking :)

               

THE SOLUTION:

               

DISCLAIMER: Neither Computer Tips and Tricks nor its authors are responsible for any damage the application of these hacks may cause on your computer. We strongly recommend that you try them in a virtual machine or backup the registry before making any changes. You can learn more on how to backup the registry on one of my previous articles here

               

First of all you must know how to find which key(s) to modify to perform a task of your choice. Here all you will need is the Google search engine. Let’s say I am looking for which registry key I need to modify in order to disable usb drives in my computer, I will just have to open up google and type the string   “disabling usb drives in my computer + registry “ (Note: the ‘+’ is a special operator for google searches which can be used amongst others to refine results of google searches, I will be writing a series of articles on Google hacking very soon :).

As you can see on the screenshot below, you are quickly served with a lot of relevant information on how to disabling usb drives in your computer using the registry.

As shown on the screenshot below, I have selected the first result and I am given a step by step guide on how to perform the task, you just need to follow the steps and you are done.

 So that is how you can get the keys for any hack you can think about.

Now that you know how to find which keys to modify in order to perform the task of your choice, I will now show you how to transform that simple knowledge into a hack.

 

  Basically there are two ways with which you can apply changes to the registry

1. The classic way using the regedit (Registry Editor) tool this is built-in in all Windows 95 and later OS’s. Here you have to run regedit, navigate to the specific key you want to modify and then play with it. I’m sure you agree with me that it’s quite cumbersome, unlike the second way…
2. By creating a .reg file which will, upon double clicking perform all the changes to the registry automatically J cool, isn’t it?

So coming back to our example - disabling usb drives in a computer, let’s say we want to do that to someone else’s computer? How would you go along it? Quite easy! You will just have to export that modified key into a .reg file (See screenshots below), First of all navigate to the desired key then apply the necessary modification. Then from the Registry Editor menu, choose File and then Export. You can then store the .reg file where you want and give it any name of your choice. If you double click on it on another computer, it will automatically disable usb drives and the victim will be like OMG WTF is wrong with my Computer while you will be like cooool... 

  

 

  

NOTE: In recent operating systems (Windows Vista and later) you will be prompted to confirm that you want to make changes to the registry, just press OK, if successful, a confirmation window will then appear.

               

Now that you know how to create the .reg files, I will show you more examples of cool registry hacks like disabling the task manager, the command prompt and even the registry editor itself, but that will be in my next article because this one is getting too long already. So see you guys.

Stay Tuned!!!

For any question, suggestion, remark, request or special query or to receive a copy of the source codes of the program, please leave a comment below with your request and email address or

- at freecomputertipsandtricks@gmail.com

- follow us on our facebook page Computer Tips and Tricks 

- join our facebook group Computer Tips and Tricks