My PC Crash or Shutdown Automatically

10 reasons why PCs crash U must Know

Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy," it says. "Enter to return to Windows or press Control-Alt-Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications."

You have just been struck by the Blue Screen of Death. Anyone who uses Mcft Windows will be familiar with this. What can you do? More importantly, how can you prevent it happening?

1 Hardware conflict

The number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt request channel (IRQ). These are supposed to be unique for each device.

For example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself.

If there are a lot of devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen. The way to check if your computer has a hardware conflict is through the following route:

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.

Often if a device has a problem a yellow ! appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer (in the Device Manager) and press Properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer. If the IRQ number appears twice, two devices may be using it.

Sometimes a device might share an IRQ with something described as IRQ holder for PCI steering. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

Sometimes you may have to find more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A good resource is www.driverguide.com. If the device is a soundcard, or a modem, it can often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard (be careful about opening your computer, as you may void the warranty).

When working inside a computer you should switch it off, unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any static electricity.

To be fair to Mcft, the problem with IRQ numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs.

2 Bad Ram

Ram (random-access memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

One way around this problem is to enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of the Ram. This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected Ram problem is to rearrange the Ram chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. Then try to repeat the circumstances that caused the crash. When handling Ram try not to touch the gold connections, as they can be easily damaged.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

EMM386 error messages refer to memory problems but may not be connected to bad Ram. This may be due to free memory problems often linked to old Dos-based programmes.

3 BIOS settings

Every motherboard is supplied with a range of chipset settings that are decided in the factory. A common way to access these settings is to press the F2 or delete button during the first few seconds of a boot-up.

Once inside the BIOS, great care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a piece of paper all the settings that appear on the screen. That way, if you change something and the computer becomes more unstable, you will know what settings to revert to.

A common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This refers to the Ram. Older EDO (extended data out) Ram has a CAS latency of 3. Newer SDRam has a CAS latency of 2. Setting the wrong figure can cause the Ram to lock up and freeze the computers display.

Mcft Windows is better at allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to yes to allow Windows to do this.).

4 Hard disk drives

After a few weeks, the information on a hard disk drive starts to become piecemeal or fragmented. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter

This will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting, so it is a good idea to schedule the procedure for a period of inactivity using the Task Scheduler.

The Task Scheduler should be one of the small icons on the bottom right of the Windows opening page (the desktop).

Some lockups and screen freezes caused by hard disk problems can be solved by reducing the read-ahead optimisation. This can be adjusted by going to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System Icon-Performance-File System-Hard Disk.

Hard disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad sectors. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-ScanDisk

Otherwise assign the Task Scheduler to perform this operation at night when the computer is not in use.

5 Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors

Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.

These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Display-Settings

Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the colour settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high colour 16-bit depth is adequate.

If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics

Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video cards manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

6 Viruses

Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs

Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.

A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is McAfee VirusScan by Network Associates ( www.nai.com). Another is Norton AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec ( www.symantec.com).

7 Printers

The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.

Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computers performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printers default settings and you may be able to carry on.

8 Software

A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you dont do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system. Reg Cleaner can be obtained from www.jv16.org

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be done during start-up. When you see the message "Starting Windows" press F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesnt work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

9 Overheating

Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heatsinks are available from www.computernerd.com or www.coolit.com

CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10 Power supply problems

With all the new construction going on around the country the steady supply of electricity has become disrupted. A power surge or spike can crash a computer as easily as a power cut.

If this has become a nuisance for you then consider buying a uninterrupted power supply (UPS). This will give you a clean power supply when there is electricity, and it will give you a few minutes to perform a controlled shutdown in case of a power cut.

It is a good investment if your data are critical, because a power cut will cause any unsaved data to be lost.

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Prevent access to specific partition or drive

Sometimes we would like to prevent users from accessing tons of data. we can do this by hiding the drive but it does not prevent the access completely. This trick will not hide the drive but users cannot access it. After preventing access, you can hide the drive to ensure full protection. To do this, perform the following steps:-

• Log into the account where you want the users not to access the drive.
• Open registry editor.
• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Software >> Microsoft >> Windows >> CurrentVersion >> Policies >> Explorer.
• Right-click to create a new DWORD value with the name NoViewOnDrive.
• Double-Click on this entry, Select the radio button named Decimal.
• In the value data field put the value of the drive you want to prevent access.
• The value is calculated using the formula 2^n-1, where n is the number of the drive which you want to prevent access-1 for A, 2 for B, 3 for C and so on...
• If you need to hide more than one drive, add the respective drive numbers and enter it into the value data field. For example, to hide drive C you need to enter 4 (2 ^3-1); to hide drives D and E you need to enter 24 (2 ^4-1 +2 ^5-1).
• To apply the change to all users in the system, follow the same method, but use the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> Software >> Microsoft >> Windows >> CurrentVersion >> Policies >> Explorer instead.
• To remove all restrictions, just delete the entry.
• To hide the drive click here.

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How to Copy or Hide a File inside an Image

Have a secret file and want to hide it on your system from other users? Here is a simple but cool trick that will enable you to hide a file in an image. The trick is so cool that you won’t be able to find out if the image is hiding a file behind it or not.

The jpeg image will not only look like usual image file but also work like one. The image will not only hide the document but also open in the Picture Viewer as usual. Great isn’t it?

Steps to hide files behind an Image:

1. Create a new folder (I created in drive C: named “a”).
2. Place all the documents/files in it that you want to hide (I stored z.txt in it).
3. Copy any image of yours in it (I stored x.jpg in it).
4. Make a rar archive of all the files that you need to hide (I created one named z.rar).
5. Now open cmd (Start->Run->cmd)
6. Go to the folder’s location by typing cd location like for me it was cd C:a
7. Now just type the following command with name that corresponds to your file

copy /b x.jpg + z.rar x.jpg

The screen will look like as shown above.

Steps to see/recover file back:

Just rename the final image to rar that is x.jpg to x.rar

The archive will be having your file

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How to remove New Folder exe Virus manually or using software

New Folder.exe virus mostly spread through the USB drive. It cannot be deleted normally. Here are the steps to remove this virus easily

1. Find out all the locations of the “newfolder.exe” virus.
2. Open the task manager and end the newfolder.exe process running in background.
3. Open cmd and then type “dir /a XXX” where XXX is the name of the folder where the virus is.
4. Then type “cd XXX”.
5. Delete the file by typing “del name_of_file”.
6. Then remove the whole folder by typing “rmdir /s XXX”.
7. The virus has been removed just see the task manager once again and end the newfolder.exe process running in the background (if any).
8. Restart the system.

There is also a software utility available for this purpose. Click to download
Run this software in safe mode to remove the virus easily.

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Forest tree or wood carvings image collection

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How to recover any file from corrupted or broken HDs SSDs or SD cards

A couple weeks ago, I lost a Raspberry Pi SD card to corruption that didnt even have backup superblocks to restore. There seemed to be nothing to do about it since I couldnt mount it. Restoring the system wasnt a big deal. However, I really wanted some of the cpp, h, js, php, sh, and other files that I had changed a good bit but hadnt yet backed up or committed. Sure we all back up and/or use git/svn but we have to remember Murphys Law.

This is a guide on how to easily recover those files that you really want but hadnt backed up.

Needed packages

To do this, we are going to use scalpel, xxd, diff, and grep (So we are most definitely using Linux)

You will already most likely have xxd, diff, and grep on your system. To install scalpel, run:
sudo apt-get install scalpel
or yum or pacman or whatever package manager you use.

**Note: It is probably a good idea to make an image of the drive and use scalpel on that if you are able.

Editing Scalpel configuration

The default scalpel configuration file is located at /etc/scalpel.conf

All you need to do is comment out the file types you dont care about and add the filetypes you do care about that arent in there.

To create custom scalpel configurations, we will use a little bit of common sense and xxd as a hex dumper.

Find a different file with the same file type or an older copy of the file you want and run the following command:

xxd -l 0x04 filename.type; xxd -s -0x04 filename.type

This will get the first 4 and last 4 bytes of the file. Which should be enough to make the filetype unique, though you can change this as needed. You should see a pattern with a lot of files.
For instance, my sh files (the ones I wrote) often start with #!/b and end with sac. or fi..
and my cpp files often start with #inc or // and end with }.
Now we will take these hex patterns, reformat them as x?? and put them into the scalpel.conf.
You should use REVERSE whenever the file may continue multiple instances of the end statement. You may also need to increase the file size from 50000 to something much bigger for larger files.

Here are some of my custom scalpel configurations:

php         y        50000    x3cx3fx70x68x70        x3fx3e REVERSE
js y 50000 x3cx73x63x72x69x70x74x20x74x79x70x65x3dx22x74x65x78x74x2fx6ax61x76x61x73x63x72x69x70x74x22x3e x3cx2fx73x63x72x69x70x74x3e 
cpp        y        50000   x23x69x6ex63              x7dx2e  REVERSE      
cpp        y        50000   x2fx2fx20                      x7dx2e             REVERSE
h            y        50000   x23x69x66x6e              x64x69x66 REVERSE
sh           y        50000   x23x21x2fx62              x73x61x63 REVERSE

Running Scalpel

Once your scalpel configuration is finished, you need to start extracting the files. This will probably take a while and will get a lot of files (multiple copies of each that match on your system). It wont know the filename or newest version but we will look at that later. You can run scalpel with the following command:

scalpel -c /etc/scalpel.conf yourcopy.img -o output

or the following if you didnt make a copy of your HDD (you will have to specify the appropriate drive and partition number).

scalpel -c /etc/scalpel.conf /dev/sdx# -o output

Once everything is finished it will be in the output folder and we can look for the newest version of your file.

Finding your files

cd into the output directory and you can see all the different filetypes organized.

cd output; ls

For all your graphical file types, i.e. videos and pictures, they should all be listed there and you will have to rename them. 

For your other files, we can use grep recursively to find our newest version. This unfortunately requires you to remember things. It is a good idea to use a function or variable name that you used in order to find your files. Ex:

grep -R "playing()" ./

Searches for the function playing in all your files, this could give you matches in js, php, cpp, c, or h files.

grep -R "::CurlWriter" ./cpp*

Searches for the definition of CurlWriter in all of the cpp files

grep -R "VoiceCommand" ./h*

Searches for the variable or function VoiceCommand in all of your header (h files)

These will probably give you a couple of different results. In my case, these were all different versions of my file. This is a really good chance to use diff. All you have to do is select two of the files and diff to see the differences. Ex:

diff ./sh-5-1/00135386.sh ./sh-5-1/00135393.sh

Once you start getting used to this, you will be better about searching for the newest function or variable name you remember. Once you narrow it down to the newest copy of your file, you can move it elsewhere.

Ex:

mv ./sh-5-1/00135393.sh ~/ImportantFile.sh

There it is, this should allow you to recover almost any file you have created from a corrupted or bad HD, SSD, or SD card.

Places you can find me

• Facebook
• Google+
• Linkedin
• Blogspot
• Google-Code
• Github
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How to extract or get email id from orkut

This is a very simple trick to extract email ID of any orkut user. This Works even if the target is not your friend. Below are the steps to do this:

Steps:-

• Navigate to the profile page of the member you wish to know the email address.
• Add that person as a friend.
• Now navigate to your friends page.
• On the right hand side, you will find a option to export contacts.
• Choose Export Contacts Option.

• Fill in the Word Verification on the Next Page.
• You will be prompted to download the contacts.csv file.
• Once you have downloaded the file, open it in Microsoft Excel or any other compatible software.
• You will see all the email addresses including those which have not yet accepted your friend requests but have recieved your friend request.

Read the comment portion for Sudhirs contribution

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How to Copy Text from Images or protected web pages

Have you ever encountered a situation whereby you would like to copy the text or character from image files or protected webpage but unable to do it? Instead of typing the text manually by referring to the image or protected webpage, now with this simple yet powerful software utility named as JOCR, it allows users to copy text from any image files or protected webpage by utilizing OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology so that it can be turned into useful character for further processing.

JOCR is a freeware and is pretty easy to use. In order to copy text from any image or protected webpage, you must use JOCR to capture the image or webpage. The image captured will be displayed immediately on the JOCR screen, then you can click on ‘Recognizer’ button to copy the text from the image file. Some of the text supported by JOCR include Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The minimum pre-requisite of JOCR is Microsoft Office 2003 or higher version, and you must have Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) installed in order for it to work correctly. If you think JOCR is useful, do get a free download here.

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USB device is not detected or is malfunctioning

It’s not easy to troubleshoot a USB device, since they are usually plug-n-play devices. If your OS is Windows XP, it’s very easy to install and begin using a USB device; Windows XP has its own native drivers. But if your drive is not detectable, then the issue is probably hardware related. You could try the following steps to solve this issue:

1. Sometimes the problem is solved by simply unplugging it and plugging it back firmly. It can be a case of loose connection.
2. Try restarting your computer with the drive plugged into the USB port.
3. Some times there is a voltage drop across the USB port which also can be responsible for the problem. Simply wait for few minutes it will be detected automatically.
4. If all these attempts are useless, go to the "Device Manager"- Right click on my computer icon desktop and click on "Manage >> Device Manager".

• Expand the Universal Serial Bus Controller List.
• You can see an exclamation mark. Right-click on it and then click on "Uninstall".
• Now, Right-click on "Universal Serial Bus Controller" and click on scan for hardware changes. Now your USB device must be detected.

If all these attempts have not solved your problem, then probably you device is malfunctioning.
Visit microsoft help for more. Click here.

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Using Youtube on the Raspberry Pi without XBMC or gnash

There is an update to this here.

You can install this by pulling the source from git and running the InstallAUISuite.sh file.
Commands to install are below (your user should have sudo priveledges but you dont need to sudo or be root to run the commands unless shown otherwise):

sudo apt-get install git-core

git clone git://github.com/StevenHickson/PiAUISuite.git

cd PiAUISuite/Install/
./InstallAUISuite.sh

Update Instructions 

cd PiAUISuite

git pull

cd Install

sudo ./UpdateAUISuite.sh

Demonstration:

So this is a quick video to demonstrate youtube working fast and easily on the Raspberry Pi without the use of XBMC or gnash.
I tried out gnash first which didnt work at all.
So then I tried out XBMC and although it is pretty, it is awfully slow so I decided to get youtube to work on my own.
The basis of this is really simple. There is a nifty program out there called youtube-dl that can get the media file from the website and download it. Its great because it does it fast and works for many other websites like the daily show and the colbert report.
So what I did was basically write a little script that analyzes your input and then gets the proper information from the youtube-dl program without downloading the video, then it sends this http stream to omxplayer to play.
It can handle playlists or individual files from multiple websites as well as a bunch of other things.

After that, I started implementing a nice little search feature using C++ and Curl.
Im starting to implement a GUI which will essentially look like youtube kind of. Until then I have this nifty search tool, which was essentially my start to the GUI I am currently creating.

If youve ever used XBMCs youtube, you will notice that this is a lot faster, and in my opinion, easier to use and more natural. Plus it only requires a tiny file on your system as opposed to XBMCs massive footprint.

The nice part of having an easy command line program like this is that it can be incorporated into a lot of other things easily. For instance, I have incorporated it into my voicecommand script as shown in the video.

The source code can be found here. To install see the top.

Sources:
This post for using axel with the youtube-dl.
This page for the youtube-dl source and documentation.

 Consider donating to further my tinkering

Places you can find me

• Facebook
• Google+
• Linkedin
• Blogspot
• Google-Code
• Github
• YouTube
• Twitter

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How to Turn On or Enable Hibernation in Windows 7

Note Windows 7 doesnt support Hibernate on System with Ram of 4GB or more.

To Turn On or Enable Hibernation.

1. Click on Start.
2. Type cmd. Now instead of pressing Enter, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to run cmd with administrator rights.
3. or Browse to C:WindowsSystem32
4. Right Click on cmd.exe and select Run as Administrator
5. Type powercfg /hibernate on and hit enter.
6. Now go to Control Panel >> System and Security >> Power Options.
7. Click on Change plan settings link of the active power plan.
8. Click on Change advanced power settings link.
9. Expand the Sleep tree.
10. In the drop down box of Allow Hybrid Sleep, select Off as new setting to disable and turn off Hybrid Sleep.

To Turn off or Disable Hibernate.

1. Click on Start.
2. Type cmd. Now instead of pressing Enter, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to run cmd with administrator rights.
3. or Browse to C:WindowsSystem32
4. Right Click on cmd.exe and select Run as Administrator
5. Type powercfg /hibernate off and hit enter.

Now, to Set the power button option as Hibernate,

• Click on Start.
• Right-Click on the Power Button.

• Click on Properties.
• Drop-down the Power Button Action Box.

• Select Hibernate.
• Click on Apply and then Click on OK.

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How to Connect a Laptop or Personal Computer to TV

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How to enable Press Ctrl Alt Del Secure Logon On Windows 7 or Vista

Method 1: User Accounts Advanced Settings

1. Click start and type netplwiz into Start Search box, it opens the User accounts dialogbox.
2. Go to Advanced Tab.
3. Under “Secure logon” section, select and check the checkbox for Require users to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete option
4. Click apply and OK.

Method 2: Registry editing.

1. Click start and type netplwiz into Start Search box, it opens Registry editor.
2. Navigate to the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem
3. In the right pane, double click on DisableCAD registry key value, and set its value data to 0

Method 3: Using Group policy.

1. Click on Start button, and type secpol.msc into Start Search box, and hit Enter to open the Local Security Policy Editor.
2. Navigate to Security Settings >> Local Policies >> Security Options.
3. In the right pane, double click on Interactive logon: Do not require CTRL+ALT+DEL.
4. Select and set the radio button of Disabled.
5. Click Apply and OK.

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