Author Archives: Ashik

About Ashik

I am doing Master's of Engineering in Computer Science from Cornell University.

7 Alternatives for Microsoft Office

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Microsoft Office is one of the most popular application suits which no doubt facilitates the users to the full extent. But due to its high price or due to any compatibility issue with the operating system, it is always desirable to have some alternatives. Lets have a summarized look on the available alternatives.

1. Zoho

Zoho is considered to be one of the best online office suites that is capable of replacing any desktop Office suite. It not only offers Word processing, Spread Sheet and Presentations but also provides you with the Wiki Pages planner for managing your to-do list, tasks and notes, and many more features that are an integral part of any office applications suit.

2. Google Docs

Google Docs is the most popular online service from Google. It is free, and provides a  Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and form application, etc. It lets you create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google Docs has come a long way with respect to the advanced features and ease of access and millions of users around the world trust it to fulfill their documentation and presentation needs.

3. Sun Star Office

Sun Star Office is a product from the well known Sun Microsystems. It is a full-featured office productivity suite that’s compatible with Microsoft Office at just a fraction of the cost.

4. OpenOffice

Open Office is one of the most well-known, open-source office software suites for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and a system with lower specs can also run it smoothly. Since it stores all your data in an international open standard format and can read and write files from other common office software packages, it is a common replacement for many Office users. It can be downloaded and used free of charge. It also works on many different operating systems like Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris.

5. iWork

iWork is the Office alternative in Mac. It is a well-known Apple’s productivity suite,  and offers an easy way to create very attractive-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It is compatible with Microsoft Office, so sharing your work is even easier and your documents, spreadsheets or presentations can easily by viewed by people using Microsoft Office or some other similar office application suit.

6. Lotus Symphony

Lotus Symphony is an office application suit from IBM, and is totally free of cost. The three applications that make up Lotus Symphony are as follows: Lotus Symphony Documents, Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets, and Lotus Symphony Presentation. The application suit works on many commonly used operating systems like Windows, Linux and Mac.

7. Think Free Office

Think Free Office was designed while keeping compatibility with Microsoft Office in mind. The key features of this office application suit are: support for open office XML format, similar user interface with Microsoft Office, up to 1 GB free online file storage, automatic file synchronization and compatibility with multiple operating systems. The online version of ThinkFree is free while the desktop version is not.

8. Extra Tool

You can also try AbiWord which is a complete alternative to Microsoft Word. We did not include it in the list since it does not replace the Office suite.

How to Uninstall Ghosted Devices from Windows

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Do you know that your computer can be full of Ghosted Devices? And like Humans are scared of real world Ghosts your Computer is also scared of these  Virtual Ghosts. Presence of such ghosts causes  deterioration in the Startup Speed and Overall Computer speed.

In simple language Ghosted Devices, commonly known as Hidden Devices, are those devices that were once connected to the system but are no longer connected. Windows however keeps a copy of them inside the Device Manager and tries to find these devices on system startup, thus reducing the startup speed(often negligible) in some cases.

As an example, lets consider a mouse that you borrowed from a friend, after using it you returned him the next day. When it was first connected, Windows installed the required drivers and when it was removed, Windows marked it as ‘Ghosted Device’. Now since you will probably never use this mouse again, it makes sense to remove it.

The common way of removing the device is to go to Device Manager, view hidden devices, right-click the device(s), hit Uninstall, and wait. Since it can be confusing at some times, this is where GhostBuster comes in. It is a portable tool that can list all Ghosted and Normal devices in one simple list and allows you to remove them in one click.

Please note that these “Ghosted Devices” can be useful as well and is one reason why Windows never looks for drivers every time you connect the device.

Suppose you connect a mouse after a few months after borrowing from a another friend and it turns out to be the same mouse that you borrowed from a friend before. Upon connecting it, you will be able to use the mouse instantly since Windows will not need to re-install the drivers. In layman’s term, the Ghosted device will become activated instantly and thus will not require driver installation again.

Note: Windows has some devices that are ghosted but should NEVER be removed(like devices in the sound, video and game controller class or system and non plug-n-play devices), GhostBuster marks them down as services. Make sure you know which device you are removing, consider this a warning.

It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. If you are using Vista or 7, go to Properties and run it in Windows XP compatibility mode.

Download GhostBuster

Windows 7: Top 10

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It has been long since Windows 7 has been released and it is getting popular very quickly. There are a lot of new Tips and Tricks about Windows 7 being posted daily. Just search Google for the Keywords “Windows 7 Tips and Tricks” and you will find 113,000,000 results. So to reduce your difficulty to chose among them we have filtered out these articles and here we have listed Top 10 articles about “Windows 7 Tip and Tricks” till date.

43 Excellent WordPress Security Tips & Plugins

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After putting in all of the time, and perhaps money, into your WordPress website or blog, its now time to secure and protect it from outside enemies and general bad guys: hackers, spammers and all round tossers.

Without a doubt, for a self-hosted blog, WordPress is the best blog CMS that you can get. Though it comes packed with security features, being a popular and open source software, it also means that hackers have full access to the code which they can scrutinize to find any exploits they can use to hack into any WordPress-enabled site.

On the good side, one of the best things about WordPress is its plugin system that allows anyone to install any plugins or create your own plugins to extend its functionality, including improving security.

Here, I have listed some wordpress security tips and plugins that you can use to secure WordPress blog.

Security Tips

1. Nobody should be allowed to search your entire server.

  • WPdesigner advices us to NOT use this search code in the search.php
    <?php echo $_SERVER ['PHP_SELF']; ?>
    Nobody should be allowed to search your entire server, or? Use this one instead:
    <?php bloginfo ('home'); ?>
  • Block WP- folders from being indexed by search engines, the best way to block them in your robots.txt file. Add the following line to your list:
    Disallow: /wp-*

2. Directories should not be left open for public browsing

There is a potential problem letting people know what plugins you have, or what versions they are. If there is some known exploit that is linked to a plugin, it could be easy enough for someone to use it to their advantage. Make an empty wp-content/plugins/index.html file or just add this line in your .htaccess file in your root:
Options All -Indexes

3. Drop the version string in your Meta Tags

A large number of WordPress themes have the WordPress Meta Tag that show the version of WordPress that is running on your blog which is an easy way to get your blog prone to hackers if you didn’t upgrade to the security-enhanced file permissions on both which is pointed out by Matt Cutts. Another solution involves a plugin that sets up a secondary new version.

This tag is in the header.php file that displays your current version of wordpress.

<meta content="WordPress &lt;?php bloginfo(’version’); ? /&gt;" name="generator" />

    4. Stay Updated

    You need to keep your on your plugin/widget, theme, and WordPress versions updated. Also, subscribing to the plugin/widget/theme Author’s RSS feeds makes keeping up with them much easier.

    5. Take regular backups of your site and Database

    You always have to take regular backups of your file directories as well as the database. WordPress Database Backup plugin creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database.

    6. Use SSH/Shell Access instead of FTP

    If someone gets a hold of your FTP login information (which is usually not encrypted and easy to get), they can manipulate your files and add spam to your site without you even knowing about it! Using SSH, everything is encrypted including the transfer of files, etc.

    7. Stop worrying about your wp-config.php file

    Keep your database username and password Safe by adding the following to the .htaccess file at the top level of your WordPress install:

    <FilesMatch ^wp-config.php$>deny from all</FilesMatch>

    This will make it harder for your database username and password to fall into the wrong hands in the event of a server problem.

    8. Block WP- folders from the Search Engines

    There is no need to have all of your filesWordpress files indexed by Google, so it’s best to block them in your robots.txt file. Add the following line to your list

    Disallow: /wp-*

    9. Block access to WP-Admin folder using .htaccess

    There is an article written Reuben that talks about how you can protect your WordPress admin folder by allowing access to it from a defined set of IP addresses. Everything else will bring up a Forbidden error message. So if you only access your blog from one or two places routinely, it’s worth implementing. Also, you’re supposed to create a new .htaccess file inside your wp-admin folder, not replace the one at the root of your blog

    10. Don’t Use Default Passwords

    Are you still logging into your wp-admin page with the same default password that was emailed to you? If so, CHANGE IT! You can follow the instructions given in the article “Hack Proof Password” posted by us earlier to imrove the strength of your password.

    11. Change database table prefix

    The default prefix used by WordPress is “wp”. You can easily change the prefix to other terms that are difficult to guess using the WP-Security-Scan. More detail on this plugin below.

    12. Don’t use (or better yet, remove) the default “admin” username

    When you install WordPress, it automatically generates a user with Administrator-level permissions called admin. It is strongly recommended that you do not use this username to make it harder for the hacker to guess your username and password via Brute force attacks. Even if you downgrade its permission role, it’s still a better idea just to remove this user altogether.

    You can use the Change Username Plugin to change the Username of Admin Account.

    Security Plugins

    13. Secure WordPress

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    It will help secure WordPress installation by removing miscellaneous items after the installation process which may aid hackers. It will remove error information from the login-page and also remove or change the WP-version data but leave it unchanged in the admin area. It is suggested to remove any unwanted information to the non-admin for security reasons so it will remove update information about plugins, themes and core update information. Secure WordPress will add a blank index.html to the plug-in directory such that if anyone is trying to view the contents of the directory they will be viewing a blank page instead of the contents.

    14. Force SSL

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Having a secure SSL connection to communicate with your users is beneficial. To enable this, your site must be SSL enabled first. To implement this, you need to buy the SSL certificate. By installing this plug-in it will force your user browser to connect to your site via a SSL connection. This eliminates any third party attacks between the connection and all the data that is transmitted to and from the site will be encrypted for better security.

    15. Chap Secure Login

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    If you are not having a secure connection like SSL to protect your password , then you can use this plug-in for encrypting passwords. It will use the Chap protocol to hide the passwords and transmit it encrypted. The only information that is transmitted unencrypted is your username. Protecting password will give full security because password leaks will enable the hacker the gain full control of your WordPress blog.

    16. HTTP Authentication

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    The HTTP Authentication plugin allows you to use existing means of authenticating users for WordPress. This includes Apache’s basic HTTP authentication module and many others.

    17. Anonymous WordPress Plugin

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    All the WordPress versions 2.3 and above have the feature to get automatic updates for plugins. During this process it will send some of your information like your blog’s URL, version number, list of installed plugins and activated plugins to WordPress.org. This information could be of potential use for hackers. So to avoid this, installing Anonymous WordPress plug-in is a feasible option. It will strip off your blog’s URL and version number and empty the activated plugins list. This plug-in is compatible with WordPress 2.3 and above.

    18. Login Encrypt

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    This will help encrypt the login information using the complex DES and RSA combination. It uses the JavaScript appended and encrypted the password of the user and generates a unique DES key. And by using this key, user can have secure login each time they login to your blog.

    19. Admin SSL

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    This plug-in will work with both the private and shared SSL connections and it will force a SSL connection in every page where password can or has to be entered. It is very helpful to protect the admin area, posts and all the pages of your WordPress installation and secure the login page. This plug-in works on WordPress 2.2 to 2.7.

    20. AskApache Password Protect

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    It will block the bots and creates a safe wall for any vulnerability your WordPress blog may have. It will protect your password as well as your WordPress directories like the wp-includes, wp-content, etc. It is like placing your WordPress blog behind a security wall.

    21. TAC (Theme Authenticity Checker)

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    TAC stands for Theme Authenticity Checker. Currently, TAC searches the source files of every installed theme for signs of malicious code. If such code is found, TAC displays the path to the theme file, the line number, and a small snippet of the suspect code. As of v1.3 TAC also searches for and displays static links.

    22. Invisible Defender

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    This plugin protects registration, login and comment forms from spambots by adding two extra fields hidden by CSS. This approach gave me 100% anti-spam protection on one of my sites.

    23. Semisecure Login Reimagined

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Semisecure Login Reimagined increases the security of the login process using an RSA public-key to encrypt the password on the client-side when a user logs in. The server side then decrypts the encrypted password with the private key. JavaScript is required to enable encryption. It is most useful for situations where SSL is not available, but the administrator wishes to have some additional security measures in place without sacrificing convenience.

    24. Stealth Login

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    This plugin allows you to create custom URLs for logging in, logging out, administration and registering for your WordPress blog. Instead of advertising your login url on your homepage, you can create a url of your choice that can be easier to remember than wp-login.php, for example you could set your login url to http://www.myblog.com/login for an easy way to login to your website.

    25. WordPress File Monitor

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Monitors your WordPress installation for added/deleted/changed files. When a change is detected an email alert can be sent to a specified address.

    26. WordPress Firewall Plugin

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    This WordPress plugin investigates web requests with simple WordPress-specific heuristics to identify and stop most obvious attacks. There exist a few powerful generic modules that do this; but they’re not always installed on web servers, and difficult to configure.

    It intelligently whitelists and blacklists pathological-looking phrases based on which field they appear within in a page request (unknown/numeric parameters vs. known post bodies, comment bodies, etc.)

    27. WordPress Guard Plugin

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Angsuman’s WordPress Guard Plugin is a must-have WordPress security plugin that protects the vulnerable areas of your blog from outside access with an additional layer of security.

    28. WP-Dephorm

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    wp-dephorm protects your users from the prying eyes of phorm. This is achieved by setting a cookie to opt out of the phorm information mining. Your blog viewers will not have their information stored and used in marketing campaigns whilst viewing your site.

    29. WP Security Scan

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Scans your WordPress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions.
    -passwords
    -file permissions
    -database security
    -version hiding
    -WordPress admin protection/security
    -removes WP Generator META tag from core code

    30. AntiVirus

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    AntiVirus for WordPress is a smart and effective solution to protect your blog against exploits and spam injections. AntiVirus protection for your blog.

    31. WordPress Exploit Scanner

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    This plugin searches the files on your website, and the posts and comments tables of your database for anything suspicious. It also examines your list of active plugins for unusual filenames.

    It does not remove anything. That is left to the user to do.

    32. Paranoid911

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Paranoid911 checks your wordpress installation for changes and sends you an email when changes occur.

    AntiSpam Plugins

    33. Defensio Anti-Spam

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Defensio is an advanced spam filtering web service that learns and adapts to your behaviors and those of your readers. Defensio aims to be an all-in-one anti-spam solution. Therefore, using it along with other anti-spam plugins WILL cause problems. PLEASE deactivate Akismet and other similar plugins before activating Defensio.

    34. Simple Trackback Validation

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Simple Trackback Validation Plugin performs a simple but very effective test on all incoming trackbacks in order to stop trackback spam.

    35. NoSpamNX

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    NoSpamNX is the successor of Yawasp (Yet Another WordPress antispam plugin) and is a plugin to protect against automated comment spam (spambots). While Yawasp changed the names of the form fields in the comment template, NoSpamNX works without these modifications, but is equally effective. By eliminating the need for modifications within the form field maximum compatibility with other WordPress plugins or browsers is ensured.
    When calling the comment form NoSpamNX adds extra fields (hidden before the “normal” user) automatically to your comment template. When a comment is saved, these fields are checked. For additional protection, the order and the values of these fields change periodically, so that no spambot can adapt to a specific blog adapt.

    36. SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    SI CAPTCHA adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress on the comment form, registration form, or both. In order to post comments, users will have to type in the phrase shown on the image. This prevents spam from automated bots. It works great with Akismet.

    37. AntiSpam Bee

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    AntispamBee protects blogs from digital rubbish. It is made up of sophisticated techniques and analyzes comments including pings. Also, for reasons of data privacy, the use of AntispamBee is a safe solution, as it is anonymous and registration-free.

    38. Akismet

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Akismet is quite possibly the most important and useful plugin you will ever install. It has been developed by the actual team behind WordPress, if that is not enough of a seal of of approval and a guarantee, I don’t know what is.

    In a nutshell, Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

    39. WP-reCAPTCHA

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    The reCAPTCHA plugin is one you’ve probably seen around on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon. It isn’t just your average CAPTCHA (an image containing some letters that are designed so only humans can read them), it uses words from old books, so every time you enter a reCAPTCHA, you’re helping digitise books. At this point, you’re probably thinking but if I’m telling it what the words mean, does that mean I can enter anything? How does that stop spammers? The answer is simple – there are two words, one of which the CAPTCHA knows. The second, it doesn’t and you’re helping digitise it.

    Backup Plugins

    40. WordPress EZ Backup

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    WordPress EZ Backup is A Administrators Plugin to allow the easiest most feature rich method for creating Backup Archives of your entire Site (not just WP Installations but Any part of your site or webspace) & allows backup archives of any MySQL Database you choose & More

    41. WordPress Database Backup

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    WordPress database backup creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database.

    42. WP-DBManager

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

    43. BackUpWordPress

    Download
    Plugin HomePage

    BackUpWordPress is a Backup & Recovery Suite for your WordPress website. This Plugin allows you to backup database as well as files and comes with a rich set of options.

    Hack to Bypass Trial Period Expiration

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    Most of us are familiar with many softwares that run only for a specified period of time in the trial mode. Once the trial period is expired these softwares stop functioning and demand for a purchase. But today I will show you how you can run the software beyond their trial period.

    How does this work?

    Before I tell you how to hack the software and make it run in the trial mode forever, lets understand how this software works

    When these softwares are installed for the first time, they make an entry into the Windows Registry with the details such as Installed Date and Time, installed path etc. After installation every time you run the software, it compares the current system date and time with the installed date and time. So, with this it can make out whether the trial period is expired or not.

    So with this being the case, just manually changing the system date to an earlier date will not solve the problem. For this purpose there is a small Tool known as RunAsDate.

    RunAsDate is a small utility that allows you to run a program in the date and time that you specify. This utility doesn’t change the current system date, but it only injects the date/time that you specify into the desired application.

    RunAsDate intercepts the kernel API calls that returns the current date and time (GetSystemTime, GetLocalTime, GetSystemTimeAsFileTime), and replaces the current date/time with the date/time that you specify. It works with Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista and 7. It works with 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

    To Run your Software Forever follow these Steps Carefully

    You have to follow these tips carefully to successfully hack a software and make it run in it’s trial mode forever.

    1. Note down the date and time, when you install the software for the first time.

    2. Once the trial period expires, you must always run the software using RunAsDate.

    3. After the trial period is expired, do not run the software(program) directly. If you run the software directly even once, this hack may no longer work.

    4. To avoid any chances of runnung the software program directly, you can delete its shortcut from the desktop and create a new shortcut using runasdate and place it on the desktop.

    5. It is better and safe to inject the date of the last day in the trial period.

    For example, if the trial period expires on jan 30 2010, always inject the date as jan 29 2010 in the RunAsDate.

    Note: This software won’t work with Anti virus as they run in Background.

    I hope this helps! Please express your experience and opinions through comments.

    HowTo: Reinstall Ubuntu Automatically

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    Sometimes after a partial upgrade of Ubuntu you suddenly find that it has broken down the System Dependency Tree and now you are unable to revert back the changes.

    In such cases there is a very simple command that reinstalls all the distribution packages and reconfigures them automatically.

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh -a

    Since this command would take a lot of time to process (~1 hour) depending on your hardware in case you have a minor dependency problem you can fix it via

    sudo apt-get install -f

    Hack Twitter Using Twitter Bot

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    Twitter is becoming an important marketing tool for online publishers and marketers. But it can be time consuming to keep your profile up to date and it often gets forgotten. I guess Everybody is waiting for a Solution. So Today I will give you a software which will automate all your twitter tasks.

    Twitter Bot can do a lot of amazing things without any need of User Intervention thats why it is called a Bot. Why one should have this software? I would say checkout the functions of this software and you will get your answer.

    Features

    1. Auto add followers: The twitter bot will add 500 new friends on a daily basis. Many of those follower may follow you in return.

    2. Auto Unfollow those who are not following you: It will automatically unfollow those who are not following you.

    3. Auto Follow those who follow you: You can return favor to your followers by following them and that by a click of a button

    4. Follow Top 100 People from your Country: You can target users from a particular Country based on Time Zones

    5. Auto Follow By Keyword Search: You can target user based on Specific Keywords.

    6. Auto Update your status: You can update your status every X minutes and these Updates will be fetched from a Text File.

    7. Auto reply: You can set a Message which will be replied automatically on arrival of a message.

    8. Multiple accounts handling: You can handle multiple Accounts. Twitter Bot can handle all of them in the background doing all the functions.

    9. Works with proxies or Real IP: The twitter bot can run behind proxies. You set a text file with a list of proxies in format IP:Port (ex. 123.123.123.123:80) and the twitter bot will first check to see which of them are working, and then it will use the working ones to login to your accounts and do the functions that you neet it to do.

    10. Extract and import your followers: You can extract the list of followers into XML or Text file.

    11. Schedule Messages: You can schedule the Bot to Update your Twitter status on a Specified Date and Time.

    12. Reply based on Keywords: You can set the Bot to reply based on the Keyword found in arrived Message.

    Conclusion

    After mentioning all these features I don’t need to say much about this Software. I would say just go and grab this software.

    Download

    To get your copy of Twitter Bot Click Here

    Secret ‘GodModes’ in Windows 7

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    The foxy-sounding name is a little deceiving, because as far as we know, it is exactly what people are calling it – a glorified control panel.  However, that goes without saying how useful this feature actually is.

    GodMode is the name given to cheats in video games that provided you with all weapons and access to all areas. As it turns out, Windows 7 has a GodMode cheat as well. It is basically a control panel of sorts which provides you access to all the features in one explorer window. In the Windows 7 control panel, features are grouped together either in categories or control panel item names. Nothing is grouped under anything in GodMode.

    How to access GodMode?

    Method 1:

    1. Create a new folder and name it GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

    2. The icon will be changed automatically to Control Panel’s icon.

    3. Now open the folder and see the magic of Windows Registry!

    Method 2

    1. Create a shortcut with following path and set desired icon:

    explorer.exe shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

    Note: Sometimes it kills explorer.exe using Method 1! probably Windows Vista x64 editions. Therefore I suggest to use Method 2.

    Solution for the Crash

    To get rid of this issue, Boot into Safe Mode with Command Prompt and delete that folder. For eg. You created a folder GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} on desktop, So either navigate to Desktop folder execute the following command:

    RmDir “GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”

    Or type the absolute path of folder, like-

    RmDir “C:\Users\<User-Name>\Desktop\GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”

    Applies To:

    • Windows Vista x86 editions
    • Windows Vista x64 editions
    • Windows 7 x86 editions
    • Windows 7 x64 editions

    Windows has lot of GodModes

    It is found that there are lot of GodModes and they differ based on the Strings used in Name the Folder.

    In an e-mail interview, Steven Sinofsky, Windows division president, said several similar undocumented features provide direct access to all kinds of settings, from choosing a location to managing power settings to identifying biometric sensors.

    As with the all-encompassing GodMode uncovered by bloggers, these other settings can be accessed directly by creating a new folder with any name (GodMode or otherwise) and then including a certain text string. Sinofsky noted more than a dozen strings create particular settings folders, in addition to the overarching GodMode folder option.

    For example, the first one could be a folder named “Hungry Hacker.{00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33}” (use everything inside quotes–but not the quotes themselves).

    Here’s the list of strings:

    {00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33}
    {0142e4d0-fb7a-11dc-ba4a-000ffe7ab428}
    {025A5937-A6BE-4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D}
    {05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
    {1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}
    {15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}
    {17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}
    {1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}
    {1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}
    {208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
    {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
    {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
    {241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}
    {4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}
    {62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0}
    {78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}