Enable Right-Click on Windows 2000 | Win2000 Tips and Tricks

  • Thread starter Thread starter SynapticSelf
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
Sign up Log in
5 replies · 10K views
SynapticSelf
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Okay...

My brother and I work together, and our machines have Windows 2000 installed. When we get bored, we screw with each other's computers...little things to annoy each other. Well this time he got me pretty good...he disabled my ability to right click.

He has an admin account, but I don't. I assumed that he just used the NoViewContextMenu Key under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. But I looked, and no key exists (which is like null). I've resorted to the old logon.scr hack to enter the "unprotected shell", and gave myself full access to the registry. I read that I can't reset the Admin password with Net Use if using NTFS... Question 1: How exactly does NTFS get around those old security issues? Why was FAT so unsecure?

Question 2: is there some other way to disable my right-click? This is asanine. It's like stealing someone's shoe. I tried to get a hint, but he just smiles and walks away. Argh!
 
Physics news on Phys.org
get yourself an admin account? You can probably crack the password to the main account unless he has a bios password... at which point you'd need to start messing with the hardware.
 
Just disable the left button till he tells you how to enable the right click.

Hmm.. On second thought.. That might not be too smart.. lol

Is auto-hotkey running? Maybe he's using some kind of program to catch the click and then cancel it out. Without an admin account, I'm not sure what you can do with it.

There are ways to crack admin accounts in xp though.. :) (Just don't delete the password! Any encrypted files he has will be permanently unreadable!)
 
Actually.. Here's an idea..

Download a WinXP password cracker (a boot cd), then after you crack the password, log into the admin account (and/or his account), change the password(s). Tell him to re-enable right click or you'll leave it like this.

If he cracks the password, then crack it again, rename "shutdown.exe" (located in the c:\windows\system32 folder) to "shutdown2.exe". Then put the following into his registry as a startup item:
c:\windows\system32\shutdown2.exe -s -f -c "enable right click or die!" -
t 10

This will shut his computer down in 10 seconds everytime he logs in and he won't be able to type "shutdown -a" to cancel the shutdown because you renamed the executable.. :) (and if you want to be nice, rename shutdown2.exe back to shutdown.exe)

Once he re-enables the right click, log into windows with his username, type "shutdown2 -a" to cancel the shutdown, and delete the startup entry. :)
 
Ha! That's a great suggestion BoredNL! I don't think I'll pull it at work, because to be honest with you I don't really want to give up on this challenge. How else will I learn and all that jazz. I'll definitely play around with your trick though - I got a kick out of that. Maybe I'll pull it on him later...
 
The following has to be one line btw. The forum wrapped the line because it was too long.
c:\windows\system32\shutdown2.exe -s -f -c "enable right click or die!" -t 10