How to Break Into Windows (And Prevent It)

One of the biggest concerns in this digital age is the age old problem of security. There are some VERY simple ways of getting into a locked computer, and it's not just trying the user's birthday either.
Luckily, preventing such attacks on your own computer is almost just as easy. In this special 2-part edition, I'll be describing easy ways to hack and prevent hacking into Windows and Macs. Obviously, I'm beginning with Windows. And yeah, you can use these methods for innocent purposes (like getting into your computer if you forget the password) too.

The Sloth Way: Copying the Files Using Linux
This is probably the easiest, laziest way to get at someone's files. Just burn a live copy of Linux (Such as Ubuntu) onto a CD, and stick it in the computer you want. Pick the trial option, which should take you to the desktop. From there, you can basically just copy all the windows files from the Places menu.
Protect Yourself: Encrypt your OS--A malicious user can't access any encrypted files.

The Sly Way: Reset Password with System Rescue
This way requires a bit of command work. However, if you need to access the OS itself, using the Linux-based system rescue CD is the best way, as it allows you to reset the password. It should cause you any problems if you follow these instructions line by line.
Protect Yourself: Again, this is basically useless for encrypted files.

The Blunt Way: Crack the Password
No, don't look around for sticky-notes which very conveniently have passwords written on them, and yeah, no one really uses their birthday, their name, or "password." There are plenty of programs for cracking passwords, Ophcrack may be the best. Again, there's a line-by-line here.
Protect Yourself： Since this program just gets the passwords for you, encryption won't help here. But you can stump Ophcrack by making your passwords longer than 14 characters, and really complicated. But remember, a password doesn't have to be hard to remember to be hard to crack.