My computer said that my password was about to expire. I don’t know why. What should to do for this case? It’s a HP notebook running on Windows 7.

Windows 7 allows incorporates built-in features to make your password expire after a specified period of time. This is one way to help keep your computer more secure, because it forces you to periodically create a new password. In this case, you can change your password or disable password expiration for your Windows 7 computer listed as below.
1. Go to Start, enter “lusrmgr.msc” in the text search box and hit Enter. It will bring up the local users and groups window.

2. Expand the User folder in the left pane to display all the user accounts on the computer.

3. Double-click the name of the user account that you want to enable or disable password expiration for.

4. Check the box next to “Password never expires” and click OK.

Aside from the procedures listed below, you can also use the command prompt to disable password expire in Windows 7. Open command prompt and run it as administrator, then type the following command, then press Enter.

wmic path Win32_UserAccount WHERE Name=’username‘ set PasswordExpiries=false

Note: ‘username’ in the command refers to your target user account name.

One more tip: Please remember to create a Windows password reset disk for the user account to in case that you may forget its password in future.

Being a common Windows 7 user, you cannot only set a strong password to stop unauthorized users, but also create a Windows 7 password reset disk to in case that you forget the password in future. Moreover, you can temporarily lock your computer to protect your password from being guessed by others through trying different key combinations. The following are the specific directions.

1. Open Local Security Policy window by inputting open local security policy in the search box and hitting Enter.

2. On the left pane, go to Account Policies >> Account Lockout Policy.

3. Right-click the Account lockout threshold policy and select Properties.

4. It will bring up the properties window. Set the number of login attempts that you want Windows to permit before it locks the account and click OK.

5. Windows will prompt you to set suggested settings for Account lockout duration and the length of time to Reset account lockout counter.

Note: Users usually use the default values of 30 minutes by clicking OK, but you can modify the values as you wish.

6. Now you temporarily lock out the account for 30 minutes whenever the wrong password is entered 5 times. This will prevent anyone from being able to repeatedly guess your Windows password, or at least make it take a lot longer.

With the data breaches on the rise, protecting your data has been a top priority for all users. If you have no idea about how to password protect your files and folders stored in your Windows 7 laptop, here’re 3 simple tips especially for you.

1. Add a strong Windows login password
A Windows password is said to be the first layer of safeguard for your computer files and folders. It can help you stop all unauthorized users from accessing your sensitive information.

a. Open User Accounts window by clicking Start button, Panel Control, User Accounts and Family Safety, User Accounts.

b. Click “create a password for your account” link.

c. Enter your password, confirm it, type a password hint, and then click Create password button.

2. Apply permissions to files and folders
Though Windows 7 doesn’t come with a method of password protecting your sensitive files and folders, it allows you apply permissions to determine if you can access the files and folders and what you can do with them.

The below steps for users who are using a computer that has different accounts. Please note only system administrators and users with administrator accounts on computers can assign permissions to individual users or groups.

a. Right-click the file or folder, and then click Properties.

b. Click the Security tab, and then click Edit.

c. To set permissions for a user that is not listed under Group or user names, click Add, type the name of the user or group, click OK, select the permissions, and then click OK.

3. Encrypt your files and folders
If you are in need of password protecting your MS Office Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, etc. you can simply encrypt them by clicking Click on the Office button at the top left corner >> Click Prepare >> Click Encrypt Document >> Type the password you want to use in the following dialogue box.

For other files and folders, you can encrypt them by using encryption software. Here highly suggests you to have a try of AxCrypt, an excellent free encryption utility that enables users to encrypt all files within a folder and not allow those files to be viewed unless a passphrase (password) is known.

Tips: a. Before password protecting any document you may wish to create a backup of the non-password protected folder and files in case you forget the password in the future or.
b. For Windows password, you can create a Windows 7 password reset disk to in case that you forget the password in future.

“I forgot my original windows 7 password and now i can’t download anything. I need help FAST!”

Advice 1: Reset lost Windows 7 password through Windows Password Unlocker
This is the fastest Windows 7 password reset method I ever tried. You will be able to reset the forgotten Windows 7 password in about 5 minutes as long as you can find a third PC that you can run as administrator for downloading and installation.

Here’s how it works: At first, you’re required to create a Windows 7 password reset USB or CD/DVD through the Windows password unlocker software in any accessible PC. Then you can reboot your locked Windows 7 laptop to boot from the burned password reset disk for Windows password reset.
It’s extremely easy to use. No matter what your computer knowledge level is, you can do the job on your own. And no matter during or after resetting Windows password, no any data damage or loss issues come up.

Advice 2: Reformat Windows 7 Read more

By the end of March 2011, Windows 7 was powering 20.9 percent of corporate PCs around the word, according to a new Research report from Forrester after surveying more than 400,000 client PCs from 2500 different companies by the firm. It was more than twice the 9.5 percent use measured by Forrester in April 2010.

Even so, the 10-year-old Windows XP operating system still dominates the corporate desktop market at present. The data from the Forrester research report shows that Windows XP continues to account for 60% of corporate desktops.  But its use decreased from 67.5 percent in April 2010 to 59.9 percent in March 2011. Read more

Despite it had sold a total of 350 million licenses of Windows 7 since launching the desktop OS in late 2009, Microsoft seems to be not satisfied about it as a large numbers of people still relies on Windows XP for their daily computing. It wants more people transitioned to the new operating system, especially the business users. And for this, Microsoft has adopted many measures to increase Windows 7 market share.

In the year or so after Windows 7’s initial release, Microsoft pushed a series of promotions and discounts designed to increase the new baby’s adoption rate of this new operating. Meanwhile, Microsoft Download Center offers a Windows XP End of Support Countdown Gadget, which counts down the days until the operating system’s official support ends in 2014. And Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft’s latest browser, doesn’t run on Windows XP.

And according to the latest Security Intelligence Report from Microsoft, Windows 7 is far safer than previous versions of Windows. The report said that Windows XP SP3 32-bit machines have an infection rate of 15.9 for every thousand systems,  while  Windows 7 32-bit computers have infection rates of 3.8 per thousand, and Windows 7 64-bit PCs have a rate of 2.5 per thousand. That means a Windows 7 is five times more secure against malware than a machine running Windows XP.

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