Techie Zone » Tutorials

Employee-owned Smartphones: Seize the Opportunity

Ajay M — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:08:51 +0000

It’s no longer feasible for an IT department, regardless of company size, to ignore the smartphone push from the majority of the employee population. IT management must attempt to channel the chaos and determine ways to embrace the personal mobility wave while maintaining effective security and management measures, especially in relation to the corporate network.

This new environment calls for innovative mobile strategies, new policies, and a fresh approach to allowing smartphones access to corporate resources. IT management must take a leadership role in setting those strategies and policies.

Download this white paper for Free to learn more.

Tips To Combat High CPU Consumption By EXE Processes

Ajay M — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 03:44:46 +0000

While there are a number of valid reasons for high CPU consumption in computers these days, it is also fairly common that this is a symptom of an underlying problem. So how does one find out the difference between the two? To begin with, you should start by analyzing CPU consumption data.

In order to monitor the CPU consumption, you can access the Windows Task Manager by pressing Ctrl, Alt and Delete keys together and then opening the Performance Tab which will show the history of CPU consumption. If you see a trend of very high CPU consumption on a constant basis, it should raise an eye brow. On the other hand, If CPU usage spikes between intervals, there is usually no need to worry. Listed below are some of the common causes of unusually high CPU usage problems and their solutions:

Non-essential start-up files

Most computer users spare little thought on which files comprise the start-up list. On the other hand, many applications that are installed on a computer tend to add one or more of their files in the start-up processes. Not only do these files eat up essential computer resources, an increased number of these files also increases the probability of file errors.

One such file that is notorious for high CPU consumption is the aawservice.exe file. This file is known to increase CPU usage up to 90-100%. Another such file which is also a legitimate file but puts such severe pressure on the CPU that the systems tend to freeze is the khalmnpr.exe file. Such problems can be resolved by simply disabling these files from loading during the start-up process. Listed below are some of the tasks you can do.

Get Rid of Unwanted Programs

Every day the computer world is being flooded by new applications and programs that promise to make our lives easier, faster or enjoyable. No wonder that computer users often get carried away and install a lot of these applications on their computer. What’s more, most of us never bother to remove the programs that are outdated or are not of any use.

Many of these programs are also very huge in size and contain thousands of files. Together with the required programs, they put enormous strain on the CPU. It is recommended that only the programs that are needed be present on the system. You should take regular inventory and completely uninstall the programs that are no longer needed.

Deal with Malware Problem

Among the various adverse effects caused by malware, one of the prominent ones is the amount of burden it puts on the CPU resources. The mode of operation is that they stealthily make an entry into your system and then go on to create problems for your system.

Take the case of the msnmsgr.exe file, which is a genuine exe file of MSN messenger. Often malware use the same name to spread destruction. The only permanent solution to this malware problem is to ensure that your computer is adequately protected from all kinds of virus, spyware, Trojans and worms. This can be done by installing an advanced anti-malware tool and using it regularly to perform complete scans of all the drives of your computer.

How to Remove MS Antivirus

Ajay M — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:55:20 +0000

The MS Antivirus also named as XP Antivirus, Windows Antivirus, Win Antivirus, Antivirus Pro, Antivirus Pro 2009, Antivirus 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, Vista Antivirus, XP AntiSpyware 2009 and Antivirus XP Pro is one of the most famous and notorious Antivirus. Firstly this resembles the familiar Microsoft Windows interface and named itself as a genuine product from Microsoft so people get easily deceived by this program. Though this program claims itself as an Antivirus it is not. This kind of programs are known as Rogue software which is a kind of Spyware. More specifically Rogue software is something that uses malware or malicious tools to advertise or install itself or to force computer users to pay for removal of nonexistent malware/spyware. Rogue software will often install a trojan horse to download a trial version, or it will execute other unwanted actions.

Once the PC is infected with MS Antivirus aka AntiVirus 2009, it issues pop up messages with fake notification of malware infection and encourage you to buy the full version of this program to remove the malware. It is very much important not to believe this fake warning and fall prey to this fake Antispyware program. It hinders the normal working of the PC and reduces the system performance. It comes bundled with many malwares and Trojans like zlob.trojan, trojan.vundo and Trojan. Downloader, so in order to completely get rid off this program you need to remove all these malwares and Trojans as well as the Antivirus 2009 component.

There are some tools developed specifically for automatic removal of AntiVirus 2009. However we will discuss both automatic and manual removal methods. If you fall into the geek category I would suggest you to use the manual removal instruction as there is no other alternative then manual removal method for completely removing this.

The Antivirus 2009 registers some dlls, create some processes of its own, creates a folder in the program files and create some registry entries. So we need to look into all the aspects while doing a manual removal.

Manual removal steps:

I recommend to start the PC in safe mode. This can be done by restarting the PC and hitting F8 key repeatedly till you see advance startup option. Select Safe mode from the list.

Unregister the dll files

The dll files responsible fro Antivirus 2009 are shlwapi.dll and wininet.dll

To unregister these files do the following:

In Windows XP:

Click on Start > Run and type cmd. Click on Ok

In windows Vista:

Click on Start and type cmd in the search box.

From the result, right click on cmd and select run as administrator.

In command prompt type:

regsvr32 /u shlwapi.dll and hit enter and regsvr32 /u wininet.dll hit enter

It will unregister the dll files.

Stop the Antivirus 2009 processes

The processes that might be created after the PC is infected with Antivirus 2009 are

av2009install.exe

av2009install_0011.exe

av2009[1].exe

av2009install.exe

ieupdates.exe

av2009.exe

av2009install_0011.exe

XPAntivirus2009.exe

In order to stop these processes, press Alt+Ctrl+del key together and click on task manager.

Click on processes tab and look for the above processes.

Right click on the process name and select End process.

Delete the files created by it

Generally Antivirus 2009 installs itself inside the program files folder. So look for a folder called AntiVirus 2009 or anything related to this name (or the list at the beginning of the post) and completely delete that.

Also, do a search by going to Start > Search

Click on All files and folders from left and put the file name as the following and search for each of the files and delete them.

Generally the related files are:

c:\Program Files\XP Antivirus
c:\Program Files\XP Antivirus\xpa.exe
C:\Program Files\XPAntivirus\
C:\Program Files\XPAntivirus\XPAntivirus.exe
c:\WINDOWS\system32\scui.cpl
%UserProfile%\Desktop\XP Antivirus 2008.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\XP Antivirus 2008
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\XP Antivirus 2008\Uninstall XP Antivirus 2008.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\XP Antivirus 2008\XP Antivirus 2008.lnk
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\XP Antivirus 2008.lnk
C:\WINDOWS\krln32.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\scvh0st.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\trjdwnl.dll
C:\WINDOWS\shlext32.exe

Removing the registry keys

Click on Start and Run type Regedit and click on Ok.

Click on Start and type Regedit in the search box and hit enter. (In Vista)

In registry editor navigate to the following keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Antivirus and delete this whole folder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Antivirus and delete this whole folder.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Locate ”Antivirus” = “%ProgramFiles%\Antivirus 2009\Antvrs.exe” and delete it.

Automatic removal instructions

There are a number of genuine AntiSpyware and AntiVirus software those are really fruitful in removing spyware infection like AntiVirus 2009. You can use any of the following AntiSpyware program for helping in removing AntiVirus 2009 as well as other malwares:

Super Antispyware

Smitfraudfix

Malware Byte’s Antimalware

How to backup emails and contacts in Outlook

Ajay M — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:29:19 +0000

Unless you use an HTTP-based account, such as Yahoo, or a Microsoft Exchange Server email account, all of your data for MS Outlook is stored in a file called the Personal Folders File, a file with the .pst extension.

This file is responsible for storing messages and other essential items on your PC. Many use the .pst file as the default location for the delivery of their emails. You can also use it to organize data or backup items for safekeeping. Even if you have a Yahoo or Microsoft Exchange Server account, you can still backup data to the .pst file on your local drive rather than the one stored on the mail server. I will let you know how to backup Outlook pst files.

How to Backup Your Outlook .pst File

To backup the .pst file in its entirety, follow the steps below:

First close any running messaging applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Exchange or Windows Messaging.

- Open the “Start” menu and click “Run”.
- Next, type “Control Panel” in the Open box.
- When the Control Panel opens, click on the Classic view from left and double-click the “Mail” icon .
- Click “Show Profiles”.
- Select the appropriate profile and click “Properties”.
- From there, click on “Data Files”.
- Under “Name”, select the Personal Folders Service to back up.

Though it could be named something else, the default name for this service is Personal Folders. Keep in mind that if your profile has more than one Personal Folders Service, you will have to backup each set of .pst files individually.

Take note that if you do not find any entries called Personal Folders, or if you have not stored any items such as messages, appointments or contacts in Outlook, there is a great chance that your .pst file has yet to be created.

If there is no Personal Folders Services in your profile but you can store items like messages, appointments and contacts in Outlook, this data is probably being stored somewhere else, such as the mail box on the Yahoo or Exchange Server.

To continue with the Outlook pst backup, click on “Settings” and note the path and file name that is displayed. Since the .pst file typically contains all the data the Outlook client uses, this file tends to be very large. To reduce the Outlook pst file size, select “Settings” and click “Compact Now”.

To finish up, close down all the “Properties” windows.

You can use either My Computer or the Windows Explorer utility to copy the file path you noted above. The .pst file can then be copied to another location on your local hard drive or any form of removable storage media such as a floppy disk, compact disc or a portable hard drive.

Conclusion

Performing an Outlook .pst backup is a relatively easy task. The key is to know how to locate the file and thankfully there are many ways to go about this task. If you do not feel comfortable manually backing up your .pst file, rest assured that there are a variety of software tools that will automate the process and make it much easier.

Brush Up your database skills with DataBase Guide

Ajay M — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:28:36 +0000

First of all let me tell you what exactly is a database. A database is a collection of information (data) arranged in a sequential manner for enabling easy retrieval, updation and manipulation in one or other ways. The datas are generally arranged in rows and columns in a tabular form. A simple database can have 2 columns with several rows or can span upto thousands of rows and multiple columns in case of a complex database like Flight reservation database of an airline.

We come across databases in many form in our day to day life in offline as well as online world. As Internet is growing rapidly and many of the service provider are trying hard to provide their services to be rendered from the comfort of your home from your desktop or laptop, most of the web applications have been developed and the core of these application is database. Say for example you access your bank account details from Internet, where do you think these account details are saved? Yes they are saved in a database and when you enter the account number and password then the data relevant to your account is pulled up from the database and shown to you. There are various types of Database Management Systems available like Oracle, DB2, SQL server, My SQL etc.

The web applications are primarily developed on either Java or ASP.Net programming language. And their are specific methods like JDBC and ODBC to be used to let your programs (web applications) connect to the database and retrieve the appropriate information despite the type of database. All the database management system above understand a single language called SQL or structured Query Language.

While dealing with database driven applications it is very important to know about SQL and JDBC or ODBC depending upon the programming language you are using for the application development.

So what is SQL? SQL stands for Structure Query Language, a common programming language used to manipulate information in the database. Using different SQL queries data can be added to a databse or deleted from it and we can retrieve and show data depending upon our requirement using these SQL statements. Example of the simplest SQL query is

SELECT * from table_name

This will retrieve all data within a table.

Now let me give you a brief of What is JDBC. It stands for Java database Connectivity and it is the standard Application programming Interface that allows Java programs to talk to the Database Management System. As JDBC is a standard specification, a Java program that uses the JDBC API can connect to any database management system for which there is a JDBC driver.

What is ODBC? ODBC stands for Open Database Connectivity and it is an interface to access database like Microsoft Access, Excel and dBase, DB2 etc through Call level Interface specification of the SQL access group. In the perspective of the end-user, ODBC is the best way of accessing information stored in another database without the need of understanding how it is done. In the perspective of the programmer, ODBC is a code that can make programming easy enough so it can access other databases in other software.

For ready reference on all database related knowledge you can visit Database Guides

Comparison of Home based Backup to Online Backup

Ajay M — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:38:33 +0000

Backing up or making copies of the data on your PC, Laptop, Mac, iPhone, Smartphone, iPod and any other place you store electronic information is like saving for a rainy day. It’s something you just have to do on a regular basis. Your information is just too valuable to lose. If you use any of the above devices regularly, there will come a time when it will crash and possibly all the information you have on it will be lost! No doubt, it will happen.

OK, so now that we understand the importance of backing up the information, the next big question is where. Do I put in on a CD, DVD, external hard drive, online? Well, the best answer for the home today is to use an external hard drive (e.g. models from Western Digital). But do you back up online or use a local hard drive? What do I mean by that? A hard drive can be located in your house (local) or out on the Internet at a secure location (online).

There are pros and cons to both. Let me outline a few real fast.

Local Back Up

With a local drive in your home, you choose the software and hardware to best fit your needs and expertise. When dealing with your sensitive, private information, the local option gives you the most security. You control access to the actual device, both electronically and physically.

Most of the hard drive solutions are very easy to set up. Some are connected directly to your PC and the others can connect directly to your home network (e.g. Western Digital’s World Edition). These network-based hard drives are the best solution, since all of your PCs, laptops, some game consoles, smart phones, etc. can be backed up in one place. Some devices can back up automatically every time you turn on the device – meaning any time you are connected to the network, the system is working in the background to back you up — and others (e.g. phones) through a PC or laptop.

The local solutions entail an up-front cost for the storage device. But the good news is that some units come with excellent backup software solutions included on the drive. You can get a great 1 terabyte system, that is 1 trillion bytes of information, which could be 250,000 mp3 songs, 285,000 photos — any way, you get the picture – store LOTS of your digital stuff for under $150. Most of us don’t even need that much storage space and can save even more money.

Internet Secure Location (online)

Online backup is a method where you use a secure service located on the Internet. With online backup you have to use the software and security levels provided by the backup solution provider. Your data is very secure but not 100% in your control. On the other hand, it is away from home and safe from any sort of disaster that could occur at home. Set up typically involves creating an account and downloading auto-installing software. You do need an internet connection to recover the data, which reduces the convenience of this approach somewhat. Also your speed to back up will depend highly on the quality of your internet connection, which again can be inconvenient. The costs are typically an annual or monthly charge.

Conclusion

So, in reality, which is the best solution; local, online or both? The answer is “both”. A local centralized backup solution for your home is convenient and inexpensive. Plus you gain the extra value of having additional storage to share photos, videos, music and more [and be sure to back those up, too]. Using an online internet-based solution once a month ensures against the potential home disasters. For as little as $5 per month it’s worth the added peace of mind.

An alternative to paying for an online service is to simply buy an extra storage device and back-up to that device and store it away from your home. These drives are so small & inexpensive these days you could easily hook it up, backup and take it to your office or a safe deposit box once a month. But you have to remember each month and you know how that goes! Most important is to start backing up now before you lose something you will surely miss.

How to convert audio cassette tape to CD

Ajay M — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:01:11 +0000

Gone are the days when we used to listen to our favorite piece of music in our tape recorder or the audio cassette player. I still remember when I first received my compact audio cassette player (referred to as Walkman) from my brother as a gift for topping the class in my high school, I was overwhelmed with joy. But I have abandoned that one long back (though I still have that in my collection). The advancement of CD player has made way for the cassettes and the player to the store room. But there are still some golden music track in the tapes and you do not want to part with them. So how about converting those tapes to digital format and store them in your PC or transfer them to your iPod or burn them on a disk. In this tutorial I will take you through the method of converting your analog audio tapes into digital format.

What you need:

In order to convert your music, you need the following:

- An audio cassette player.

- The tape which holds the music you wish to convert.

- A male-male 3.5mm audio jack.

- A software like Audacity. This can be downloaded freely from the

Audacity Sound Editor page.

- A sound card with Line-in or Mic port. Line in is preferable and almost all sound card including an onboard card has the Line-in and Mic port available.

How to convert:

When you have arranged all of the above in what you need section , we are ready to convert our music. Perform the following steps.

- Install the audacity program.

- Plug in one end of the male-male audio cable to the line out/headphone port of the cassette player and the other end to the line-in or mic port of the sound card.

- Open the audacity program and change the input type. This can be done by going to Edit > Preferences and clicking on the Audio I/O tab. Set both the playback and recording devices explicitly to your inbuilt sound or to the computer sound device your cable is plugged into. Do NOT select “Microsoft SoundMapper” on Windows machines.

- In the same preferences tab, select the channels to Stereo as it provides better sound quality then a mono channel.

- Press the record button (the one with red circle) on Audacity, then press play on your cassette player.

- When the required track is finished or the tape is finished playing, press the stop button (yellow square) on Audacity. Do not switch off the cassette player first.

- Click on File > Export as Wav or Export as Mp3 or Export as Ogg Vorbis. Depending upon the audio format you want.

- Save the converted file on the PC and later you can burn it on a CD or DVD.

- Just to check how the recording goes, try to record a short clip first and then adjust the volume depending upon the noise in the clip.

Here is a complete tutorial about the use of Audacity.

How to save Flash content from a website

Ajay M — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:25:17 +0000

At present the web is full of rich media like images and flash. The much fascinating games or animation we view on different funky websites are most likely created using Flash. Whenever we open a website containing these flash files, the files get downloaded to the temporary files in the hard drive before they are played on the website. I always fancy having those cool games and funky animation in my hard drive and sending them to my friends as attachment to view them as a standalone application or for offline viewing. But downloading these contents alone from the website is not an easy task. Not to mention that downloading the whole webpage also exclude the flash content. However there are a couple of ways by which we can download tjose flash movies and games to our PC. We will discuss the methods for both Firefox and Internet Explorer tho most popular browsers available. And I will alos discuss about a couple of add ons/software to accomplish the task.

Saving Flash content in Firefox:

- Open the website from where you want to save the flash content. Let it load completely.

- Click on Tools > Page info and it will open a new window.

- Click on Media tab and it will show the whole list of images, flash and other multimedia files present in the webpage with the previews.

- Scroll in the list to locate the required flash (swf) fle and select that.

- Click on Save as and save it to any folder on your hard drive.

Saving Flash content in Internet Explorer:

All the contents of a website we visit through Internet explorer are stored in a folder called Temporary Internet files. We can easily harvest any image or flash content from that folder.

- Open the website from where you want to save the flash content. Let it load completely.

- Click on Tools > Internet Options.

- Click on Settings under browsing history section under general tab.

- It will open a new window, It will have the temporary Internet Files folder location. To open the folder click on view files.

- Once in Temporary Internet files folder, change to details view.

- Arrange the files according to the type. It will group files of one type together. We need to go to the swf type and locate the swf files from the site we wanted to save.

- Copy the flash file to any folder you want t to keep.

The files we saved from above methods are files with extension .swf (short for ShockWave Flash). These files require a standard flash player or can also be played in Internet explorer. Just double click on the file and when the dialog box appear to choose a program, select Internet explorer and the files will be [played in IE.

However if you want to have these flash files in the .exe format, the one we get from Cds or receive through mail forwards, we need to use a converter. Sparkle Flash Keeper is a very good and useful program.

The 2 methods described above requires a bit of work but they are worth doing as they do not require any additional plugin or program and can save some bucks. It also requires an intermediate level of knowledge. So if you do not want to experiment you can always take the easy root by using a third party application or plugin.

Some readymade programs

Flash Saver:

It is a standalone software to download flash content from websites. Once installed it also adds a context menu in Tools option in IE menubar. It alos ads a right click context menu in IE. It is the best software available for ripping flash as it can perform a lots of task like downloading of Flash Game, Flash Movie, Flash Templates, Flash Tutorlals, Flash Videos, Youtube Videos, Flash Cards, Flash Banners, Flash Books, Flash Cartoons etc.

It helps in downloading Flash items from the floating shortcut bar; from context menu of Internet Explorer; Detect Flash files from an URL; Search in local cache files; etc. And downloading Youtube videos using Flash saver is so easy and hassle free.

Flash Favorite:

Flash Favorite makes it easy to download and save flash files (SWF, FLV) on the web pages. You can preview the flash files and optionally rename it and save the file clip on your computer for future playback.

Flash Saving Plugin:

Flash Saving Plugin lets you easily save flash movies right from Internet Explorer. Finally! There’s no need to rummage about in the browser cache anymore! If your browser is Internet Explorer, then a button is added to the Internet Explorer toolbar.

How to download from Internet using Torrents

Harpreet S — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:52:59 +0000

I have been asked this question many times “How can I download movies or TV shows or Games or any software from Internet?” Though this question seems to be vague to someone who is involved with Internet like me but for newbies or people who use Internet just for the sake of using, the above question may seem to be an uphill tasks. I am fed up answering their questions over phone or showing them at their place or mine. So I have decided to write down this handy guide to assist all those who is keen to learn the trick to get newly released movies or full version software programs.

First you need to download bittorrrent clients like utorrent or bittorrent for Windows, Azureus for Mac and BitTorrent for Linux. This program will enable you to connect to the peers (other users). By this means you can download the files you want to. Click through one of the client above as per your system to download and install the client.

Once you have installed the torrent client, all you have to do is just search for the software, Game, Movie, songs etc to download from the torrent directory, you can use the search engine Torrentz.com

How to open:
- Open Internet Explorer or any other browser.
- Type www.torrentz.com in the address bar.
- In the search pane type anything that you would like to download.
For example you can type “Desperado”

This is the time to be very careful while downloading the Movie. (Ensure that you read and check all the information that I have mentioned here)

Once you get the list of the Movies (Desperado) you have to check for these four things:
- Order by name
- Data
- Size
- Peers

Order by name: It is the place where you will find the list of the search that you have made “E.g.: Desperado” There are something like, movie action video; games windows pc, etc. so you have to choose the correct one. Currently, I am referring to Movie.
Date: it’s a time when particular file was started. Like 1 month ago, 4 month ago or 1 year ago. Just try to search for the latest one.
Size: It is the actual size of the particular download. If you are downloading Movie than make sure that you select at the range of 650 to 800 MB. Rarely, it will be more that. It depends upon the file that you are trying to download from the torrentz. If it is Software or an Operating System then obviously, it will be of huge size.
Peers: It is the person who shares files from their computer. BitTorrent starts with cutting a file into small pieces, the person who starts sharing the file (early seed) sends those small pieces to available peers in the group. The BitTorrent protocol makes sure that the seed sends a unique piece to everyone, so they can immediately exchange these pieces with each other. More number of peers means good and healthy download.

However, I am referring to a Movie called Desperado, so; you can click on the first link. That would be “desperado [1995]DvDrip AC3 6ch[Eng]-Zeus Dias » movies action video”
Here everything is perfect, it’s 1 month old, and has size of 801 Mb and with the peers of 269.
(Note: This may change because of the updates in Movies or changes in peers. So, please try to locate appropriate one)

Once, you click on the link you will receive the list of the search engine and directory. You can select any one of those which will open a new Internet Explorer window.

In the open Windows scroll and search for the “download” or Download this torrent” this will depend upon the search engine that you have selected above.
Never ever click on “Download from UseNext” because it will redirect you to another website where you have to pay and Login to download.

After clicking on “Download” or “Download this torrent” you will receive a small window to “Open” “save” or to “Cancel” the file. Click on “save” and provide appropriate location where you can easily find the file. Better if you can do this in your desktop because it’s just a small file to start an actual download.

Now, go to your desktop and then double click on the file that you have just downloaded. It will prompt you a small window where you can change the save location view the actual size and the percentage of download. After doing all the necessary setting click on “OK”

(Note: This “Task properties…” is for “Bitcomet” (Torrent client) However, it may differ upon the clients that you have downloaded.)

This is the Bitcomet windows where you can check your progress. You can “stop” and download the files later. By start downloading again by clicking on “Start” You can click on “Play” to see the preview of the movie or songs. You can also click on properties to change the settings.

Once you have finished the download it will show as 100%. After this you can open the folder where you have saved the file.

This is all about the tiutorial on Downloading using a torrent. Hope you all liked this.

How to: Postpone Vista activation for a year

Ajay M — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:19:14 +0000

With the release of Windows XP in 2001 Microsoft implemented a technology called Microsoft Product Activation (MPA). According to Microsoft this was developed to combat software piracy. But it has never lived upto Microsoft’s expectation. After you install Windows XP (or Windows Vista) you need to activate it within 30 days, failing doing that it will become dysfunctional. Where as in Microsoft Office product the activation should be done within first 50 launch of the program. Most of the piracy of Windows XP took place from the Volume License key of Windows XP provided to corporate, who just needs only one key to install and activate thousands of Windows XP. So in vista this technique was modified and a cumbersome technology called Volume Licensing 2.0 which required to set up a “Key Management Service” (KMS). But it places a heavy burden to Corporate hence Microsoft developers invented a registry key (”skiprearm”) that helps to corporate IT administrators to reduce this burden.

Brian Livingstone of windowssecrets has demonstrated this simple registry hack by exploiting the skiprearm and a simple command to extend the Vista Activation requirement to almost a year.

Here is the step by step instruction:

Step 1. In Windows Vista

that hasn’t yet been activated, click the Start button, type ‘regedit’ without quote into the Search box, then press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.

Step 2. Explore down to the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ SL

Step 3. Right-click the Registry key named SkipRearm and click Edit. The default is a Dword (a double word or 4 bytes) with a hex value of 00000000. Change this value to any positive integer, such as 00000001, save the change, and close the Registry Editor.

Step 4. Start a command prompt with administrative rights. The fastest way to do this is to click the Start button, enter cmd in the Search box, then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. If you’re asked for a network username and password, provide the ones that log you into your domain. You may be asked to approve a User Account Control prompt and to provide an administrator password.

Step 5. Type one of the following two commands and press Enter:

slmgr -rearm
or
rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows

Either command uses Vista’s built-in Software Licensing Manager (SLMGR) to push the activation deadline out to 30 days after the command is run. Changing SkipRearm from 0 to 1 allows SLMGR to do this an indefinite number of times. Running either command initializes the value of SkipRearm back to 0.

Step 6. Reboot the PC to make the postponement take effect. (After you log in, if you like, you can open a command prompt and run the command slmgr -xpr to see Vista’s new expiration date and time. I explained the slmgr command and its parameters in my Feb. 15 article.)

Step 7. To extend the activation deadline of Vista indefinitely, repeat steps 1 through 6 as necessary.

You can find the full article in Brian’s news letter in his website.