Windows 7- How To Create A Password Protected Folder Without Additional Software

Create Your Password Protected Folder

Before you get started you need to create a folder that will house your password protected folder, this is just an ordinary folder and can be located anywhere and named anything.

Navigate into your newly created folder and create a new Text Document. This can easily be done from the context menu.

Open the document, now paste the following code into the contents of the document:

cls 
@ECHO OFF 
title Folder Private 
if EXIST "HTG Locker" goto UNLOCK 
if NOT EXIST Private goto MDLOCKER 
:CONFIRM 
echo Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N) 
set/p "cho=>" 
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK 
if %cho%==y goto LOCK 
if %cho%==n goto END 
if %cho%==N goto END 
echo Invalid choice. 
goto CONFIRM 
:LOCK 
ren Private "HTG Locker" 
attrib +h +s "HTG Locker" 
echo Folder locked 
goto End 
:UNLOCK 
echo Enter password to unlock folder 
set/p "pass=>" 
if NOT %pass%== PASSWORD_GOES_HERE goto FAIL 
attrib -h -s "HTG Locker" 
ren "HTG Locker" Private 
echo Folder Unlocked successfully 
goto End 
:FAIL 
echo Invalid password 
goto end 
:MDLOCKER 
md Private 
echo Private created successfully 
goto End 
:End

Change the PASSWORD_GOES_HERE text to the password you want to set. Now go ahead and save the file as locker.bat.

Once the file is saved as a batch file you can delete the original text file.

Now run your batch file by double clicking on it–the first time you run it, it will create a folder called Private. This is where you can store all your secret things. When you have finished adding all your stuff to the Private folder, run locker.bat again.

This time you will be asked if you sure that you want to lock the folder, press the “Y” key and hit enter to lock your folder.

You will see that your Private folder quickly disappears.

If you run the script yet again, you will prompted for a password.

If you enter the same password as you set in the script the Private folder will reappear if you enter the incorrect password the script will just Terminate.

Warning

Most people don’t know how to show system files, but anybody who has some experience will probably be able to quickly figure it out in the Folder Options.

Also, any ordinary user who unchecks the box will most probably be scared off by the warning message that appears.

The second way someone could comprise the folder is to open the batch file and read your password. It’s definitely not a really secure way to hide your files, but it is fun.

Ong Family In Newspapers!

A trip to Teluk Bahang National Park, Penang revealed an unexpected surprise: An interview by a newspaper reporter!

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review

13th December 2012: The official release date for The Hobbit: AUJ worldwide. What can I say? Expectations were nigh on high for this movie, considered by many the most anticipated movie of 2012, and rightly so especially considering the crushing success of the LOTR trilogy. So, the most asked question of the year. Is The Hobbit: AUJ worth the wait (it’s been 9 long years!), and does it do justice to Tolkiendom?

Seated comfortably in my premiere class seat, with a large popcorn set in my hands, I waited, twiddling my thumbs in anticipation. Up came a trailer for World War Z starring Brad Pitt which lasted for the longest 2 minutes ever! Oh, how I felt like strangling the person next to me. This was the movie premiere for the country, and I was one of the first to watch it. Jeezus… it took forever for it to begin. [Spoiler alert!]

And when it did, it was simply magnificent. We are treated to a a little scene from FOTR’s Concerning Hobbits (featuring old Bilbo and Frodo). “My dear Frodo, you once asked me if I’d told you everything there was to know about my adventures. While I can honestly say that I have told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it.” Then we are brought into the world of the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain, and their love of mining and of gold. Thror’s rule was prosperous, and Erebor became one of the fortresses of Middle- Earth. However, the dragon Smaug came out of the north and laid waste to Erebor and adjacent Dale. There was a mass exodus of dwarves, and it is then that we see Thranduil and the Woodland Folk turning their backs on the dwarves, thus giving rise to Thorin’s hatred for the elves.

As the camera pans in and out of every detail of the mighty halls of the dwarves and its sacking by Smaug, I couldn’t help but feel nauseous. Watching the movie in 48fps and all its glory, you are presented with so much detail and beauty that you simply want to drink it all in. But when the scenes start shifting, panning, and zooming about, your brain comprehends the level of detail on the first frame, but your eyes are already perceiving the second frame and so on. I suppose this leads to some amount of brain confusion as the brain can’t catch up with all the details. Even so, we shouldn’t let this distract us from the true context and brilliance of the movie.

Then we see the sad story of how Thorin loses not only his home, but his kin in the quest to re- establish Moria as a dwarven kingdom. However, the orcs were there first, and we see Azog the albino orc for the first time. Critics were right in the sense that he really did look a little cartoonish (being 100% CGI and all), but I really did expect more of Weta whose people had really done such a fine job on all characters prior.

The Hobbit: AUJ progresses at a good pace, not too quickly, nor too slowly. And it does justice to much of character development so much so that you aren’t left wondering too much about how our heroes came to be. Fast forward to the unexpected meeting at Bag End, and you’ll come across all 13 dwarves together in the movie for the first time. It was a cheerful affair for them, and a rather confusing one for the befuddled Bilbo, who can’t for the life of him figure out who these strangers were, or whether to succumb to his Tookish (more adventurous) side. Then there was “Misty Mountains Cold”, the much vaunted testosterone- filled epic song first heard on the trailer. It does not disappoint when heard in full, and pretty much sums up what the dwarves have been through thus far. Also, there was a pretty entertaining rendition of “That’s What Bilbo Baggins Hates”.

Needless to say, Bilbo realizes that his life would not be complete without an adventure, and he bursts out his door without his handkerchief, the contract in hand, and runs on the join the dwarves and Gandalf. From there on, they encounter trolls, goblins, orcs, wargs, elves and then more goblins. Trollshaw was where the company was almost eaten by trolls, and had Bilbo’s quick thinking and Gandalf’s timely return to thank. I even kept a close eye on the troll’s positions when they were turned to rock (just like how Frodo saw them in FOTR).

Radagast makes an appearance, and we see the return of the Necromancer to Dol Guldur. The company are chased by wargs, and discreetly led by Gandalf (against the wishes of Thorin due to his profound hatred of elves) to the last Homely House of Middle- Earth: Rivendell.

The dwarves are welcomed by none other than Elrond, lord of Rivendell in full armour. It is there at Rivendell where they discover the true extent of Thorin’s map via the light of a crescent moon on a midsummer’s eve. Also, the White Council convened to discuss the growing evil spreading its darkness in the north.

The company minus Gandalf move on and in the mountains, they are caught in a battle between stone trolls, after which they escape into the ‘front porch’ of the goblins of the mountain, where they are imprisoned and brought before the Goblin King. Gandalf makes yet another timely appearance, and helps the dwarves escape. Meanwhile, Bilbo escapes, and chances upon Smeagol. The Riddles in the Dark follows,  in which Andy Serkis does his thing to perfection (just give him a damn Oscar now!!), and an enchanting moment where pity stays Bilbo’s hand, and leads him on to greater things. Upon escaping the goblin mountain, the company are besieged once again by wargs and orcs. Here, Bilbo proves his true worth, and saves Thorin. The movie ends when the Eagles swoop down to bear the company to their eyeries, and they feast their eyes upon the Lonely Mountain, where their ultimate destiny awaits.

Though there were minor hiccups (namely the CGI Azog, lousy- looking CGI wargs and some virtual- looking background due to the high resolution and excessive lighting), The Hobbit: AUJ really is the most epic movie of the year. Smaug’s film teaser was rather well done as it leaves us wondering what Smaug looks like in full. Ian McKellan has really grown into his Gandalf character, and Andy Serkis has only enhanced his Smeagol- ness. Martin Freeman is a perfect fit for Bilbo, as he develops from a timid homesick character into the burglar of the company. Elrond is as grand as always (great to see him riding in in full armour), and Galadriel looks even more majestic than in FOTR. All in all, this was a very satisfying movie. It was well worth the long wait, and in the end, Peter Jackson did not fail to disappoint. I’ve already watched it in normal 2D as well as in 3D, and I found it to be a profound experience. It was not as awesome as the LOTR trilogy, but then, it was never meant to be compared against as these are 2 very different stories and concepts altogether. Here’s to next year’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Barney Stinson- Best Pickup Line Ever

Partitioning a USB Drive

What we need to do now is make two partitions on the drive. One for the BackTrack OS, and one for the changes. Windows only recognizes FAT partitions, while Backtrack can only save changes to an ext2 partition, whatever that is. Two weeks ago, I worked for hours trying to get this setup to work. One 1.5GB partition for the OS and for anything else I want to store. This partition can be read with Windows. It’s a FAT32 partition. The second partition of 0.5GB has to be an ext2 partition to save the changes. This will not be recognized by Windows.

Okay, this is the issue. Windows will not let you partition USB drives. It recognizes it as a removable Disk, for which Windows does not support partitions. I tried time after time to make both partitions in Linux. No luck. I couldn’t get the drive to boot correctly. Someone on forums.remote-exploit.org mentioned that making the FAT32 partition on linux can be unstable, so we have to make it on Windows, which is easier said than done.

Thanks to a guy that posted here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=ST&f=82&t=69211&st=0#entry474505, I was able to do it, albeit with some patience. He explains it pretty well, but I’ll write it in my own words for clarity.

First make sure your USB drive is installed and working correctly.

Click on the Start button, then choose Run… – In the box type regedit and press Enter. This opens the Registry Editor.

Double click on ‘My Computer’, then on ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE’ ==> ‘SYSTEM’ ==> ‘ControlSet001′==>’Enum’==>’USBSTOR’ .

Now look at the list of items under USBSTOR. My Sandisk Drive has two entries. One that is classified as a CdRom, because Sandisk puts this weird software called U3 on. We need the entry that starts with Disk, by me it’s'Disk&Ven_SanDisk&Prod_U3_Cruzer_Micro&Rev_4.04′. Depending on your drive it will say some thing that should start with ‘Disk&Ven_’.,

Once you’ve found that, right click on it. From the menu that comes up, select ‘Copy Key Name’.

Now open Notepad, or your text editor and paste it there for future use. The line should look something like’HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_SanDisk&Prod_U3_Cruzer_Micro&Rev_4.05′, depending on your drive

Now go to http://www.getusb.info/wp-content/USB_LocalDisk.zip. A download will start automatically. Go to the folder on your computer that contains your download files and unzip the files into a folder. You should now have 6 files in that folder. Double click on the file called cfadisk.inf. It should open in Notepad, otherwise right click and choose open with…, and open it in Notepad.

Look at the file. You will see 10 lines that begin with ’%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,’ and is followed with’IDE\…….’.

Go back to your open Notepad containing the line you copied from RegEdit, and press Ctrl-A to select it, and Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard. Now go back to the other open notepad file. On each of the 10 lines that start with ’%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,’ select all the text following the ‘comma’, for example, select ‘DiskIBM-DSCM-11000__________________________SC2IC801′ and press Ctrl-V to paste the Regedit line in instead of it. Do that to all 10 lines, and close and save the file.

Here’s what it looks like now:

Click on Start, and select Control Panel.
Select System.
Once that opens, click the Hardware tab, and select Device Manager.
Double click on Disk Drives, and look for your USB drive.
Right click on it, and select Update Driver.

It will ask you if Windows can connect, select ‘No, not this time’. Click Next.
Select ‘Install from a list or specific location’ and click next.
Select ‘Don’t Search. I will choose the driver to install’. Click next.
Click ‘Have disk’ and then select ‘Browse’.
Locate the folder you unzipped the driver file to, and double click on ‘cfadisk.inf’.
Press ‘OK’ Click Next.
It will give a ‘Update Driver Warning’, click ‘Yes’.
It will warn you that the driver has not passed Windows Logo Testing, click ‘ContinueAnyway’.
Let Windows do it’s magic and click ‘Finish’.

If all worked as it should, if you open ‘My Computer’ now, you will see your USB drive listed as a Local Drive, not a Removable Disk. Cool!!! Now it’s partitionable and all.

We are currently fooling Bill Gates into thinking that our USB drive is a Local Disk. Now let’s move on to partitioning. Right click on ‘My Computer’ and select ‘Manage’. (Alternatively, you can click Start–>Run–> type ‘compmgmt.msc’–>OK.) Click on Disk Management. Find the drive that is your USB drive. WARNING: We are about to erase the partition on it, so make sure you got the right drive, otherwise….

Right click on the drive letter and select ‘Delete Partition…’. You will get a warning, click ‘Yes’ to continue.
You will now see your drive fully Unallocated on the bottom panel. Right click on it in the panel, and select ‘New Partition’. Click next, leave it a Primary Partition so just click next again.
Now you have to specify how much space to allocate for your FAT partition. Leave about 500MB for changes, and use the rest for this. Don’t save too much space for the changes, since it won’t be recognized in Windows, it will get wasted. For example, on my 2GB drive I enter 1500 for 1.5GB. Please note that you must have this partition at least 700MB in size, to fit the BackTrack files. Press next.
Assign Whatever letter you like or just leave it at the default. Press Next.
On the next menu, make sure Format this partition… is selected, set ‘File system’ to FAT32, and set ‘Volume label’ to whatever you like. I named it BackTrack. This is the name that will show up for the drive in ‘My Computer’. Click Next. Click Finish.
Let Windows do it’s magic, and you have yourself a nice partition on your USB Flash Drive. Shhh… Don’t tell Bill.

My Precious (Alan Harper on “Two And A Half Men:)

 

Alan Harper on “Two And A Half Men” loves “The Lord Of The Rings” as well!