Category: Tips and Tricks
When you have a problem with your Windows computer, you’ll usually be told to insert the Windows cdrom and then start the Recovery Console in order to fix the issue. Why can’t we just install the recovery console to the hard drive ?
As it turns out, you can indeed install the recovery console as a boot menu option. This won’t help if your computer doesn’t boot at all, but in many cases you’ll find it useful.
Installing Recovery Console to the Hard Drive
First you’ll need to insert your Windows XP cdrom into the drive. It’s important to note that your cdrom version of XP has to match the version of XP that you have installed. So if you have SP2 installed but your cd is for SP1, you’ll need to read this Microsoft KB article.
Open up the Start \ Run dialog, and then type in the following command, adjusting the drive letter to match your cdrom drive:
d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons
You’ll be prompted with a really wide dialog box to confirm that you really want to do this.
The installation will think for a minute
And then you’ll get a prompt that the installation was successful (hopefully).
If you have problems installing this, you’ll want to check out this Microsoft KB article.
Accessing the Recovery Console
Once you have the recovery console installed, you can restart your computer and you should see it in the list of boot option choices:
Once the console loads up, it will ask you which installation you’d like to logon to. You’ll have to type the number, in this case you would type “1?, and then be prompted for the administrator password.
Type HELP at the command prompt to see a list of all the commands.
I won’t go into detail about how to use the console, as that’s really a separate article altogether.
Change the Boot Menu Timeout
After you install this, you’ll suddenly notice that your computer waits at the boot menu for 30 seconds. To change this timeout, either right-click on My Computer and choose Properties or use the Win+Break shortcut key.
Select the Advanced tab, and then the Settings button under Startup and Recovery:
Now you can change the timeout value down to something more reasonable, like 5 seconds or so.
If you click on the Edit button you’ll see the boot.ini file, where you can see the new line for the recovery console.
Category: Tips and Tricks
To see the ip all computers you are connected to (web servers, people attempting to hack into your computer).
Go to dos (start>run>type command) and run the netstat command. Type netstat /? for details.
Type netstat -r at the command prompt to see the ip of all computers you are connected to
In MSN (and other programs) when you are chatting to someone everything you type goes through the MSN servers first (they act as a proxy) so you see their ip rather than who you are chatting to. You can get round this by sending them a file as MSN doesn’t send file through its proxy.
When you type the netstat -r (or -a for a different view) the ip’s are under the foreign address table. The ports are seperated by a : . Different programs use different ports, so you can work out which ip’s are from which program.
Connecting to other computers and what ports are:–
Servers send information. Clients retrieve. Simple.
Windows comes with a built in program to connect to other computers called telnet.To start Windows telnet Start menu> Run> type Telnet. Click connect> remote systemPorts are doors into computers. Hosts are computer names
(ip number or a name that is translated into the ip automatically)
Different programs open different ports, but they always open the same ports so other computers know which port to connect to. You can get a port list listing all the different ports, but a basic one is:
11 :- Sends info on the computer
21 :- FTP (File transfer program)
23 :- Telnet (Login to the computers command line)
25 :- Smtp (Sends mail)
80 :- Http (Web pages)
There are thousands of different programs using different ports. You can get programs called portscanners which check a computer for all ports up to a certain number, looking for ways in. You can portscan a computer looking for ways-in.Anyway, back to telnet.
Type www.yahoo.com as the host and port as 80 the click connect.If nothing happens, you’re in. Wow. You are connected to Yahoo’s server.You can now type http commands (you are connected to an http server, so it supports http commands). Ie. on an ftp server you can type open and it will do something. On an http server it will just wonder what the hell you are on about.
Type get / http/1.0 then press enter twice to get the file on the server at / (try /index.html) etc.)
Allowing dos and regedit in a restricted Windows
A very simple tactic I found after accidentally locking myself out of dos and regedit is to open notepad and type the following:
REGEDIT4[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesWinOldApp]”Disabled”=dword:0[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem]”DisableRegistryTools”=dword:0
Save it as something.reg then run it. Simple.
Proxies
Proxies are computers that you connect through, hiding your computer. Most aren’t anonymous, they give away your ip. Some are. Good anonymous proxies: mail.uraltelecom.ru:8080 and 194.247.87.4:8080.Different programs require different ways of using proxies.
To do it in internet explorer 5 go to tools, internet options, connections, settings. In the above proxies they are in the format host:port
