How To Capture Someone’s Picture Who Tries To Unlock Your Phone

Some things are better if kept private. I have seen many people hating it like anything when their friends or family members try to unlock their smartphone without their permission. And sometimes due to lots of successive incorrect attempts, the phone gets hard-locked – that means the only way to unlock your phone is via your email. This is enough to irritate a person. Also, you can not do anything about it because you don’t know whom to yell at.

Today, I am going to tell how you can capture a photo of that intruder who tries to unlock your phone without your permission. The only thing you have to do is to download and install this free Android app called Hidden Eye. Hidden Eye once installed will capture a photo of the intruder each time he/she tries to unlock your device.

How Hidden Eye Works?

It’s very simple to use the Hidden Eye app: just open it and tap on the OFF button which is located at middle and then tap to ACTIVATE it. Now tick the options on which you want to get alerted, and this is it.

Hidden Eye app work on a very simple idea- each time intruder tries to unlock your device, it will capture an image of him/her which you can see by tapping on View Intrusions. You can also see the date and the timing below the image captured by app.



If you have turned on the first option, your phone will ring after 3 attempts with the default ringtone. With enabling the second option, you will get to see the intrusion in notification bar. And if you enabled the third option, you will get to see the intruder’s image at the time of unlocking your phone.

Anonymous Hijacks Thousands of Insecure Routers to Power Its DDoS Tools

Lack of some elementary security measures can risk your router’s security and this has stemmed to grow into a large-scale denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks using these hacker-controlled routers. A web security firm Incapsula has discovered a new router based botnet Mr Black while investigating some DDoS attacks against its customers since this December.
 
Hackers exploited routers’ negligent security measures to launch these attacks all over the world. According to this report published by the security firm, the routers made by Ubiquiti Networks had DDoS malware installed on them.

The routers were not hacked due to some vulnerability in the hardware. Instead, it happened because of the deployment of the router in an insecure manner that exposed their management interfaces using the default credentials over SSH and HTTP.

The routers that were inspected were found to have 4 versions of Mr Black, a DDoS program and altogether thirty-seven variations of Mr Black were detected. Other DDoS programs included DoFloo, Mayday and Skynet (a remote sensing tool).

In some earlier versions of the report, Incapsula said that it believed that the hacktivist group Anonymous was one of the few groups those used the compromised routers. It is yet not clear that why Anonymous was highlighted in the report, but it is certain that few people who call themselves “Anonymous” were using the routers. The original article on the Daily Dot was edited to remove the fact that botnet directs to irc (dot) anonops (dot) com.

Total 40,269 different IP addresses were detected from 1,600 ISPs spread across 109 countries. The main affected countries were Thailand (64%), Brazil (21%), United States (4%) and India (3%). To control these routers, 60 servers were hacked and majority of these were in China and the U.S.

This image and the text have been removed from the original story, without explanation pic.twitter.com/TWxhg3k1dK

— Anon.Dos (@AnonDos_AnonHQ) May 13, 2015

To save themselves from the DDoS attacks, users must make sure that their routers’ management interfaces aren’t exposed over HTTP or SSH to the internet. They can also use some tools available to scan their router’s IP for open ports and change their default login credentials.

Save Your Eyes From Computer Strain Using f.lux for Windows, Mac and Linux

No more watery eyes, when you wake up from sleep in the middle of the night to work on your bright computer screen. Your eye savior, f.lux is here. First things first, what is f.lux and why do you need it?

Why do you need f.lux ?

Decreasing the brightness is not that attractive an option, because the blue light emissions from your screen is still significant enough to well up your eyes with water and completely ruin your sleepy state. It is proven that exposure to blue light significantly aids in keeping you awake for a longer time in the night.
To get to the science behind it, here’s why. Most of us don’t know this, but there is another kind of receptor cells beside rods and cones in our retina. It’s called Melanopsin. The discovery was made about 15 years ago. Melanopsin is sensitive to narrow band of blue light in 460-480 nm range. Melanopsis works different functions for different creatures, but that’s another story.
There are two things I’d like to recommend to your reading list to get more information about melanopsin and effect of blue light on sleep:

1) Internal Time by Til Roennberg
2) Research Papers and articles – link

What is f.lux what does it do?

f.lux is a desktop applet for Windows, Linux, Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch which limits the glow of your screen. Instead, it replaces that with a warm tone. There is no problem for your eyes not to feel comfortable on the screen in the morning. The daylight is sufficient and doesn’t let your eyes feel the glow that the screen throws. But say at 11 PM while you are, say trying to work late after sneaking on your father or wife, you power up your computer and you get instantly taken back by the brightness!
You can reduce the brightness and contrast to a certain extent, but there is a limit to which you can go without compromising your experience. f.lux comes to rescue here. It automatically switches to a warm tone at night and goes back to a brighter shade in the morning.
Don’t worry as it uses only 3.86MB of RAM approximately, is completely free, has no CPU load and works like a charm without any user interference. The working is also fairly simple. You can also customize the way it works, especially how warm you want your screen to be at night.

How to use f.lux to save your eyes?

It does the work by calculating your present location (through google maps)and works according to the sunrise/sunset cycle. The f.lux indicator applet automatically manages the color temperature of your screen based on your latitude and longitude, or if you are in the US, your zip code.

In the preferences panel, you can set your preferred night-time color temperature and see a preview, as well as seeing the current color temperature.



You can even pause the applet if you want to:




You can download f.lux for windows here and for Mac here.
For iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch you need to jailbreak your device in order to install it. You can follow the instructions here.
To install f.lux on Linux (Ubuntu) open up the terminal and copy paste the following commands one by one.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kilian/f.lux

1	sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kilian/f.lux

sudo apt-get update

1	sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install fluxgui

1	sudo apt-get install fluxgui

If you are having an error in adding the ppa (the first command), follow this link to troubleshoot it.
The Linux GUI of the f.lux applet doesn’t provide as much customizing options as that of the other platforms, so if you are interested in adding features to it, you could do it on its open source code on GitHub.

If you have any other query regarding f.lux, comment your queries below. Do share your experiences.

How to use Windows Calculator to convert Decimal to Binary

You can use the built-in Calculator in Windows 8 / 7 to carry out Decimal to Binary conversions.
The Windows Calculator file, calc.exe is located in the System32 folder.
To open it, type calc.exe in the start search bar and hit Enter.



During the course of your working, at times, you may feel the need to convert a decimal digit into binary digit or concert a binary digit into a decimal number.

Use Windows Calculator to convert Decimal to Binary

The Windows Calculator can be operated in 4 modes – Standard, Scientific, Programmer & Statistics. To be able to use to use Windows Calculator to convert Decimal to Binary, you have to use the Programmer mode.

To change the mode, click on View and select Programmer.

You will see Hex (Hexadecimal), Dec (Decimal), Oct (Octal) and Bin (Binary) radio buttons. These are used for converting numbers between these numbering systems.
Ensure that Dec (Decimal) radio button is selected.
Now type your decimal number.
Next select the Bin (Binary) radio button. This will convert the digit from Decimal to Binary.
As an example I opted to convert 2015 into Binary, and the converted digit came to 11111011111.

Trust it works for you!

Hide data in a secret text file compartment of Windows 8 / 7

The Windows operating system offers many tweaks and tricks. If you are aware of these, then you can complete your tasks quickly and in a simple way. You may never need to use any third-party software, if you are good at using those tricks. Among those many tweaks available, I will let you know, how to hide data in a secret text file compartment, created using a Notepad in Windows 8 / 7.

We normally save our bank account numbers, credit card numbers, important passwords and so on, in text files and place them on our desktop to access them easily.
 But, if your system is being shared with others, then there is chance of this information being compromised.
What I suggest is, follow this method of hiding data whenever necessary and remove those text files immediately once you are done with your work, as once anything is made, there are many ways to break it. This method makes use of the Alternate Data Streams of the NTFS file system, which Windows supports.

Hide data in a secret text file compartment

First open the command prompt in your Windows system and type the following command:
Syntax:

notepad FileName.txt:SecretWord.txt

Example Command:

notepad HideData.txt:FirstSecret.txt

Now, when you hit Enter, it says Cannot find the file specified at the location and asks whether to create or not. Just click ‘Yes’. Start typing into the file and save it.



The file shows a 0 KB size and it means there is nothing in that file.

So, the text which we wrote, is hidden in this file and if you double click the file to open it, you see nothing written in it. Even if someone opens it, they will see an empty text file, and can start typing data in to it. It does not affect our hidden data at all.

See and Edit the hidden data which was saved before
Now, if you want to see the hidden data, you need type the same command. You can even add some more data in this step itself.

If you want to add some more hidden data to the same file, then you need to use another secret word. This is not at all related to the data hidden with the first secret word.

Example Command:

notepad HideData.txt:SecondSecret.txt

None of them will have impact on either files or the main data. One thing to remember is, you need to go through command prompt to access the hidden data.

Now, when everything is done remove that text file completely using Shift+DEL and no one knows about that file any more.

This is a simple way to natively hide data in a text file of Windows. Use this tips whenever you need to save some confidential information for that span of time.

How to hide a drive in Windows 8

If you are a Windows user, you would probably know about hiding or locking a folder or file which has confidential data. We generally, use some folder encryption software to do these tasks. But, if you have many such folders and files, it is not a good idea to lock each and every folder. A better option would be to move all such files and folders which you want to hide or do not want others to know about their existence, to some drive on your PC. Then, hide that entire drive so that it is not visible to anyone.
That hidden drive will not be seen in Windows File Explorer, but can be accessed through a Command Prompt or by typing the drive letter in the address bar of Explorer. So, when someone uses your Windows PC, they do not know that there is such a drive existing in your PC and your confidential data is safe. This can be done in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. I will guide you through steps to be followed in Windows 8.

Hide a drive in Windows 8

There are 4 ways to hide a drive in Windows 8. It is through Disk Management, using Group Policy, through Windows Registry or by using Diskpart command in CMD. We will see these ways step by step, so that you can implement the same to hide a drive in Windows 8.

Hide Drive using Disk Management

If you want to hide a drive in Windows 8 through Disk Management, you need to right-click on My Computer and then click Manage.
In Computer Management Console open Storage by double clicking on it.

Now, double-click on Disk Management Snap-in.

 Disk Management Console opens up and you can see all drives of your PC.




Choose the drive which you want to hide and right click on it. Choose ‘Change Letter and Paths’ and click on Remove button.

If it asks for confirmation, say ‘Yes’. Now, you cannot see the hidden drive in My Computer.

Hide drive using Group Policy

Run gpedit.msc and navigate to the following settings:

User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/File Explorer

Double click Hide these specified drives in My Computer and select Enabled.



From the drop-down menu, select the Drive you want to hide.

This policy setting allows you to hide these specified drives in My Computer. This policy setting allows you to remove the icons representing selected hard drives from My Computer and File Explorer. Also, the drive letters representing the selected drives do not appear in the standard Open dialog box. If you enable this policy setting, select a drive or combination of drives in the drop-down list. This policy setting removes the drive icons. Users can still gain access to drive contents by using other methods, such as by typing the path to a directory on the drive in the Map Network Drive dialog box, in the Run dialog box, or in a command window. Also, this policy setting does not prevent users from using programs to access these drives or their contents. And, it does not prevent users from using the Disk Management snap-in to view and change drive characteristics. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, all drives are displayed, or select the “Do not restrict drives” option in the drop-down list.

Save and exit.

Hide Drive using Windows Registry

In this second way, we will use NoDrives registry key to hide a drive in Windows 8. As we add a key to the registry, I suggest you to take the backup of your registry. Once it is done, proceed!
Press Windows Key+ R, type ‘regedit’ and hit enter. It asks for confirmation, say ‘yes’. Now, registry Editor Console opens up. Navigate to the below path,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> Software –> Microsoft –> Windows –> CurrentVersion ->Explorer

Here we are going to create a new DWORD value, so right click on Explorer and choose New -> DWORD Value (32-bit).

Give the name as ‘NoDrives’ and double click on it, to change the properties. Now, console opens where we need to enter values. In Value data, choose the one based on the drive you want to hide. Each drive letter has unique value and values are as below,

A: 1, B: 2, C: 4, D: 8, E: 16, F: 32, G: 64, H: 128, I: 256, J: 512, K: 1024, L: 2048, M: 4096, N: 8192, O: 16384, P: 32768, Q: 65536, R: 131072, S: 262144, T: 524288, U: 1048576, V: 2097152, W: 4194304, X: 8388608, Y: 16777216, Z: 33554432, All: 67108863

Choose the corresponding value for the drive and enter that value in ‘Value data’. Choose ‘Decimal’ for Base section. As I want to hide, drive ‘G’, I am entering the value as ‘64’.

If you want to hide two drives, say for example ‘E’ and ‘G’, you can enter value one value as ’80’ (E = 16 and G = 64) and it hides both the drives.
Restart your computer and your drive in hidden now. If you are supposed to get the drive back, change the value to Zero or you can even delete the ‘NoDrives’ registry key.

Hide Drive using CMD

1] Open an elevated command prompt, type Diskpart and hit Enter.
2] Type List Volume and hit Enter.
3] Now type select and the numeral against the letter of the Drive (eg. it could be G Drive), which you want to hide. For instance, it could be Select Volume 6. Hit Enter.
4] Finally, type Remove Letter G and hit Enter.
You will see a message – Diskpart successfully removed the drive letter or mount point.
To show the hidden drive, follow steps 1, 2, 3 mentioned above.
Now type Assign Letter D and hit Enter. This will show the drive in Explorer.

These are the 4 ways you can hide a drive natively, in Windows.
UPDATE: You can also use freeware HideCalc to hide disk drive in Windows.

Windows 8 Safety Settings

With the increasing influence of the Internet in our lives, online safety and privacy is becoming a very important topic to ponder upon. It is essential to maintain the privacy online, especially when we are sharing so much of our personal data on the web.
Thankfully, Windows 8 comes with some brilliant safety and privacy options to secure Windows, that help protect us from the online threats and risks. With Windows 8 safety and privacy tools, you can protect your online privacy as well as the safety of your children online.

Windows 8 Safety Settings

1] Privacy Settings
Go to the PC Settings from the ‘Charms Bar’. You can open the Charms Bar by taking your pointer to the right edge of the screen or by pressing the shortcut keys Win+C.



Go to the ‘Privacy’ section and control if the apps can use your location, name, and picture.

2] Family Safety
The Family Safety feature of Windows 8 allows you to get the reports of all the activities done by your kids on your PC. Furthermore, you can set the time limits for them to be online, apply restrictions for certain apps and much more.


To apply the Family Safety to your child or anyone in the family, you first need to create an account for them.
Go to the control panelàUser Account and Family SafetyàSet up Family Safety for Any Users.
While creating a new account for a new user, check in the box to turn the family safety on. Checking this check box will start monitoring the account automatically.



You can now adjust the settings accordingly. Set the time limits, web filtering, apps and games used etc. You can also restrict some particular websites, apps and games for this new user from the Family Safety settings.


You can also view the detailed activity reports of the new user, right from the websites he/she visited, pages blocked, games played and the time spent on the PC.

3] Protect Your PC from Malware

Microsoft has always been very particular about the protection against malware. Windows 8 comes with some very good technologies which defend your PC against such malicious software and hacking attempts. Features like Windows Firewall, Windows Defender, and Windows SmartScreen make your PC safer and more secure.
Windows Firewall is turned on by default. Microsoft suggests not to turn the Firewall Off even for a few minutes as it may expose your computer system to malware – unless of course, you are using a third-party firewall software.
Windows Defender: It is recommended to keep Windows Defender ON as it guards your computer against any malware, spyware or viruses spread online. It is not turned by default and you have to adjust the settings manually.
If the Windows Defender in your PC is off, you might see a message showing that Defender is turned off and isn’t protecting your computer.
To adjust the settings go to the Action Center. Press Win+C and open the Charms Bar and search for Action Center. After you turn it ON, Windows Defender runs automatically in background and alert you if any malware attempt to install on your system. It uses red, yellow and green colors to show the security status of your computer. Furthermore, it also lets you scanning your system to check if any malware has landed to your PC. You can remove the threats detected in the scan.
You may also use a free third-party antivirus software or an Internet Security Suite, if you wish.

Windows SmartScreen


This is the new safety feature added to Windows 8 which protects your computer from any kind of spyware. Microsoft has its own database of apps and Windows SmartScreen, if turned ON, won’t allow you to download any app until its reputation is verified. You can adjust the SmartScreen settings from the Action Center.
If your personal data is shared with the social networking websites and the online vendors, it becomes very important to understand the importance of online privacy and adjust the safety settings accordingly.

Stay safer!
Do share if you have any additional tips.

How to check BIOS version in Windows 8

This post shows you how to check current BIOS version in a Windows 8.1 / 8 / 7 computer, using Windows Registry, WMI Command, System Information Tool (MSINFO32.exe) or DirectX Diagnostic Tool (DXDiag). BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System and is a type of firmware that is built into the hardware, used during and for the booting process of a computer.

Check BIOS version

You may need to check your BIOS version if you plan to update it. Of course, whether you want to do it or whether you should do it is another questions. Anyway, there are several ways you can do this. Lets us have a look at them.

1] Using WMI Commands
You can use Windows Management Instrumentation to find out the details of your BIOS. To do so, open an elevated command prompt windows, type the following and hit Enter:

wmic bios get biosversion

2] Using MSINFO32
The built-in MSINFO32 or System Information Tool displays this information under System Summary. To open this tool, Run msinfo32 and hit Enter.




3] Using Registry Editor

When Windows loads, it stores the BIOS information and other details under the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System

Here you will see the details under System. You will also see additional details under SystemBiosDate, SystemBiosVersion, VideoBiosDate  and VideoBiosVersion subkeys.
To see the BIOS version Run regedit and navigate to the mentioned registry key.



4] Using DXDiag
DirectX Diagnostic Tool or DXDiag.exe is basically meant to help you troubleshoot DirectX issues. But if you Run dxdiag to open it, you will see the BIOS version mentioned under the System tab.



Of course, apart from this, you can also use some 3rd-party system information tool like Speccy to see your BIOS version or see it when you enter your machines BIOS setup by pressing F10/F12 keys during boot-time.

Password protect polders in Windows without using 3rd-party software

Occasionally, Windows users might feel the need to place password protection on their folders. Chances are, these folders contain sensitive information that no one else should view, no matter the reason. T
here are several third-party free file encryption software available that allow computer users to attach a password to their sensitive folders and encrypt them.
However, today we are going to look at how to password protect folders without software.
This trick is nothing new – and works even on Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Password protect folders without software

First thing is first: You will need to create a folder that will contain your password-protected subfolder. Once that new folder is created, navigate inside the folder and create a text document. Now, there is no need to give this text document a unique name because you will be deleting it after everything is done.
Once this new text document is created, just open it and copy paste the following inside:

cls

@ECHO OFF

title Folder Locker

if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK

if NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER

:CONFIRM

echo Are you sure u 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 Locker "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

echo Folder locked

goto End

:UNLOCK

echo Enter password to Unlock folder

set/p "pass=>"

if NOT %pass%==Your-Password-Here goto FAIL

attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Locker

echo Folder Unlocked successfully

goto End

:FAIL

echo Invalid password

goto end

:MDLOCKER

md Locker

echo Locker created successfully

goto End

:End

We are almost done here, so don’t go running off just yet.

You will now need to add your required password to gain access to your “sensitive files” whenever you need them. To do this, locate “Your-Password-Here” in the script you just copied and pasted in the text document. Delete “Your-Password-Here” and type in your desired password. Once done, it is time to save the document as “FolderLocker.bat”. This is only possible if “All Files” is selected.
Not sure what that is? Don’t worry, we’ll break it down for you. Within the document, click on File, and then Save as. After that, you should see something called Save as type, click the drop down menu and choose All files. Once done, save the document as FolderLocker.bat and close it.
You should now see a file with the name, “FolderLocker”. Double click on it and it should automatically create a folder called Private, this is where you will be storing all your sensitive data. Open it and place your files inside, when you’re done, return to the file called FolderLocker and double-click it. You should see the following:



Type “Y” and press Enter. This will lock the Private folder, which will force it to disappear. If you would like to see it again, double-click FolderLocker again, but this time you’ll need to type the password you have chosen. Next, press Enter.
That’s it; you’ve done well, so pat yourself on the back. You can now safely store your sensitive files in a password-protected folder without using a third party software.

We suggest that you first try using this trick on empty folders, till you get a hang of it. Don’t go on and password-protect your important data right-away. Once you get the hang of it, you can go on and use it on your important folders. Also if you were to forget your password, simply right-click the FolderLocker.bat file and select Edit. You will be able to see the password there.

How to create an eBook from Wikipedia

Wikipedia is usually the first place we visit to know about anything and to collect information.
We often bookmark particular Wikipedia pages for further reading.
There are many links within each page which we are interested in and we may need to visit them again and again. Instead of bookmarking those pages, now you can create an eBook by collecting all required Wikipedia pages as PDF.
You can reorder the pages and can categorize them under single chapter as you want.
Let us see steps to be followed to create an eBook from Wikipedia.

Create an eBook from Wikipedia

First, visit the Wikipedia page which you are interested in and want to add to eBook. On the left side, click on “Create a book” link under “Print/export” section.



The Book Creator page opens up and shows how to use book creator and steps to create eBook from Wikipedia. Let us see, one by one to create eBook. Click on the “Start book creator” button.



You will be taken back to the previous page and now, you can see the Book Creator section got added on the top. Now, you can add pages to your eBook. There are two ways to add pages to eBook. One way is to add current Wikipedia page or pages which are present in this current page as links. In order to add current page to your eBook, click on “Add this page to your book” link. This page gets added to your eBook.



In order to add Linked Wiki page to your eBook, hover your mouse on the link and you will be shown “Add linked wiki page to your book”. Click on this link and this page is also added to your eBook.



Apart from you selecting individual Wikipedia pages, there is an option to see pages which are suitable to your topic. Click on the “Suggested Pages” link and it shows the linked Wiki pages which are suitable for your eBook.



In order to add suggested Wiki pages to your eBook, click on the green colored plus button present beside the linked page. This gives the message as page has been added to your book and you can even undo the action to remove the added page from eBook.



These are some simple steps to add pages to your eBook. Now, you can manage your eBook by reordering the added pages, creating chapters and reordering them and many more like that. So, let us see the way to manage created eBook.

Manage your eBook

The number of pages added will be shown beside Show book. As we have added 5 pages for now, it shows 5 pages beside Show book link. Now, in order to manage your book, click on “Show pages” link and it opens “Manage your book” section.



You can give Title, Subtitle, columns and more from the available options. You can place all these pages to a single chapter. In order to create a chapter, click on “Create Chapter” link and give the name of the chapter in the popup window and click “Ok”. Created chapter will be added at last by default.



In order to have all these contents under this created chapter, drag it to the top of these contents. You can even reorder the contents or added Wiki pages by dragging and dropping them as shown,



You can rename the chapter by clicking on “Rename” link. If you want to remove any page or chapter from the eBook, you can click on the trash icon available beside every page. To view the page, click on the icon with lines available beside the page.



If everything is ready, click on the “Download as PDF” button.



It starts generating the eBook and it takes time based on number of pages you have created.



Once everything is done, it shows the “Download the file” file. Click on it or right-click on the link and choose “Save link as”. This downloads the created eBook in PDF format to your local system.



Open your created eBook and see that all pages are under the created Chapter. Chapter and contents are also in the order we specified while creating the eBook.



You can even get the printed version of the created eBook from Pedigrees. On what topic you have created eBook from Wikipedia?

If you have anything to add, please do share with us through comments.

Disable Administrative Tools in Windows 8

If you are a system administrator, you may have your reasons for wanting to hide, remove or disable Administrative Tools in Windows 8.1 and restrict users from using them. In this post we will see how you can display it in Start Menu Search or disable it using Group Policy Editor and the Registry Editor.

Display Administrative Tools in Start Screen

Switch to the Start Screen of Windows 8.1. Move the mouse cursor to the lower-right corner of your computer screen to open Charms, and choose ‘Settings’ option. Next, from the section shown, select ‘Tiles’ option.

Then, simply slide the Show administrative tools bar to Yes.

Hide Administrative Tools using Group Policy

Run gpedit.msc to open the Local Group Policy Editor. Navigate to the following path:

User Configuration > Administrative Template > Control Panel

In the right pane, select Hide Specified Control Panel Items. Double-click on it.
Click Enabled, and then on Show. In the Show content box which appears, type the following in the Value space:

Microsoft.AdministrativeTools

Click Apply / OK / Save and Exit.

Disable Administrative Tools using Registry Editor

Run regedit to open the Registry Editor, and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Locate and change the DWORD value of StartMenuAdminTools as follows:

• To disable Administrative Tools : 0
• To enable Administrative Tools: 1

Deny access to Administrative Tools menu

To hide the Administrative Tools menu from Standard Users, you can also do the following.
The Administrative Tools shortcut is located at:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Right-click on the Administrative Tools folder and select Properties. Click Security tab. Select Everyone and click on the Edit button. In the Permissions box which opens, again select Everyone and then click on the Remove button. Next click on the Add button, select the domain administrators and give full Access and Full Control. Click OK and Exit.
Do share if you know of better ways to achieve this.