Do you have a .docx Word file that you want to convert to .doc Word file but do not have Microsoft Word 2007 or earlier versions? You can convert it using Microsoft free programs, Word Viewer 2003 and Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

First, download and install the required programs:

1. Download Word Viewer 2003
2. Install it.
3. Download Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats
4. Install it.

Converting the .docx Word file to .doc Word file:

1. Double click the .docx file, it will be converted automatically and opened for you to view it. But at this point you didn’t really get the .doc file that you want; there is no option for you to save what you are viewing.
2. The .doc file has been actually created but it was put in the Temp folder. To see the location of the file, from the menu bar choose File, then select Properties.
   

   Word file menu

   Note that the file name of the .doc Word file being viewed is Wd0000000. You might have it as Wd0000001 , Wd0000002, or similar.

3. Click the General tab.
4. Next to the Location field, select the path as shown in the image below.
   

   Word file location

5. With the text being selected, copy it by holding the Ctrl key then pressing C key (Ctrl+C). An example of the copied file location is: C:\DOCUME~1\UserName\LOCALS~1\Temp , where UserName is the folder that holds the user account files (usually it is the same as your user account name).
6. After that, click the Windows Start button, then click Run.
7. In the Run dialog and next to the Open field, paste the copied path (using Ctrl+v).
   

   Run dialog with Temp folder path

8. Click OK button.
   Alternatively,  instead of using the Run dialog to reach the Temp folder, you can Navigate to the Temp folder step by step by going to (You should have Show Hidden Files and Folders enabled so that you can see the Local Settings folder):
   C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Temp
   It means that you go to My Computer, then drive C , then Documents and Settings , then UserName, then Local Settings , then Temp folder.
   Alternatively also, you can copy the path to the Address field after entering My Computer, then hitting Enter key or clicking Go button.
9. Now that you entered the Temp folder, look for the Word file in the folder, in our case it is called Wd0000000.doc (you might see it as Wd0000000 , it depends if you have enabled hiding the extension of known file types, i have it disabled).
   

   Converted Word doc file in Temp folder

10. Copy the file to your desktop or wherever you want.
11. You now have the .doc version of your file. However, the file has read-only attribute set, to clear this:
    1. Right click over the file and select Properties.
    2. With the General tab selected, look in the Attributes section and uncheck the Read-only checkbox.
    3. Click OK.
       

       Properties of the Word doc file

12. Finally, you just rename the file to an appropriate name that you would like.

There are other ways to convert the Word .docx file to .doc, but I just found that it is most appropriate to do it using Microsoft programs. And in case you don’t have Microsoft Office Word 2007 or 2003 you can download their free programs (Word Viewer 2003 and the Compatibility pack) to do the file conversion.

What have you used to convert .docx Word file to .doc when you didn’t have a Microsoft Word full version? let us know by commenting!

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MUST re_cover! virus showing text in AutoCAD drawing

Have you seen MUST re_cover! text showing up when you open your AutoCAD drawing? This is not an error message produced by AutoCAD or Windows, it is a text produced by a variant of acad.vlx virus that appears as a drawing. Trying to recover your file with AutoCAD recover command will not help. Your file might appear as if totally corrupted but it is not. It looks like the virus creators were not that bad when they made it, because they have given you a hint on what to do to recover your file. As you may have already noticed, the hint is MUST re_cover! .

What we are going to do is that we will use the virus itself to TRY to recover the malformed AutoCAD dwg file. When I say “to try” it means that our attempt to recover the file may or may not work depending on several facts:

1. We cannot fully trust the virus (but do we have other options?).
2. The virus may not be the same that everyone has faced, although showing the same text.
3. As we will see later in this article, the virus creators may have missed something about dwg files that it will not work on some of them correctly and so recovering the file may produce a deformed useless drawing.

Important: The following is intended to help you recover your AutoCAD dwg drawings that have been corrupted by MUST re_cover! virus. However, I GIVE YOU NO GUARANTEE WHATSOEVER THAT THIS WOULD WORK ON YOUR COMPUTER OR WOULD RECOVER YOUR FILES, DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Precautions: To avoid any or further loss of data,

1. If your AutoCAD is infected with the virus, symptom: each time you open a file it is transformed and show MUST re_cover! text, then you need to STOP OPENING AUTOCAD FILES ESPECIALLY THE ONES WHICH ARE STILL CLEAN… and continue reading my article.
2. If you have a file that is showing MUST re_cover! text, do not make any changes to it, because this might cause the recovery process to fail.
3. YOU SHOULD BACKUP YOUR FILES INCLUDING THE ACAD.VLX VIRUS FILE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO RECOVER YOUR CORRUPTED FILES.
4. Do not clean your computer from the virus before you USE THE VIRUS ITSELF TO RECOVER YOUR FILES.
5. You may want to try doing the recovery on a test computer that you are not using in a production environment or even your personal use. Other than installing the required software on the test computer, you need ACAD.VLX virus file and your corrupted AutoCAD dwg files.

Note: If your AutoCAD is not infected and you have a file that shows the text of the virus, maybe you brought your file from a flash memory, then you have to bring also the acad.vlx file (possibly present in your flash memory) so that you can proceed and attempt recovery.

Note: If you desperately need to open an AutoCAD file right now and your AutoCAD is infected with the virus, then do the following with caution and make sure you make a copy of the file before doing it: Open the AutoCAD application alone (see images below) and then choose File, Open and browse to your file. The virus will not be loaded in this case even if acad.vlx is present in the same directory; and your file would not be transformed.

AutoCAD program shortcut

Opening an AutoCAD file using the Menu bar

How does this virus transform your file to an unusable form?

The MUST re_cover! virus is started when you double click on an AutoCAD dwg file present with acad.vlx virus file in the same folder. acad.vlx will be loaded automatically and will transform your dwg file into unusable (apparently corrupted) file. It will show transformation percentage like the one in the figure below.

MUST re_cover! virus corrupting an AutoCAD dwg file

After that, it will save the file and you will have no .bak file for it to recover from, because it will delete the .bak file. And you will see “MUST re_cover!” text.

If this has happened once on a computer, then the virus has infected the AutoCAD environment. Let us just call or describe it as AutoCAD infected.

So, what should we do?

As the virus is asking us to do, we are not going to recover the file; instead we are going to re_cover the file. (Yes, it is different )

The following was done using AutoCAD 2007. I will show you 4 different ways to try recovering your files. You can choose any one and start applying, or look for the one that matches your case right now.

Case 1: AutoCAD already infected. This is the case where the virus has run at least once on your computer.

• If the AutoCAD Program is open, then do the following:
  1. If your corrupted file is not open, open it using File,Open from the menu then browse to it.
  2. Load the acad.vlx file: type appload in the command line, then browse to the acad.vlx file (usually, you will find it in the same directory of your corrupted dwg file).
  3. type re_cover in the command line and press Enter. You will see the percentage of the recovery process, wait until it finishes.
• If the AutoCAD Program is not open then do the following:
  1. Double click on the file you want to recover and wait until it loads.
  2. Then type re_cover in the command line and press Enter. You will see the percentage of the recovery process, wait until it finishes.

Case 2: AutoCAD is not infected. This is the case where your file got infected from another computer and you didn’t run your file while acad.vlx hanging around it in the same folder. This also can be the case where you have chosen to recover your file on a test computer. Caution: The following will infect your AutoCAD, this is what we want so that you can recover your files. But I recommend you do it on a test computer.

• If the AutoCAD Program is open then do the following:
  1. If your corrupted file is not open, open it using File,Open from the menu then browse to it.
  2. Load the acad.vlx file: type appload in the command line, then browse to the acad.vlx file (usually, you will find it in the same directory of your corrupted dwg file).
  3. type re_cover in the command line and press Enter. You will see the percentage of the recovery process, wait until it finishes.
• If the AutoCAD Program is not open then do the following:
  1. Double click on the file you want to recover and wait until it loads. (Or use File, Open from the Menu).
  2. Load the acad.vlx file: type appload in the command line, then browse to the acad.vlx file (usually, you will find it in the same directory of your corrupted dwg file).
  3. type re_cover in the command line and press Enter. You will see the percentage of the recovery process, wait until it finishes.

The following image shows the recovery process.

MUST re_cover! recovering an AutoCAD drawing

Note: It really makes no difference which method of the above 4 you have chosen unless you want to do it on a test computer. I just wanted to make it clear for you to know what you should do in a certain case.

If one of the above ways succeed in running the recovery process (seeing the percentage of recovery…), observe what shows up after it finishes. 2 possible results:

• Recovery was successful: this is the case where you indeed see your drawing is back! Congratulations! You can now save it.
• Recovery was unsuccessful: this is the case where you see deformed drawings. This happens because the original file had proxy graphics that AutoCAD warned about its inability to allow editing of them, the file was transformed by the virus to show MUST re_cover! hint, but their recovery process was unsuccessful. Unfortunately, I don’t know any way around this, and there may be no way around it. The virus creators have probably missed something about it. And unfortunately again, we can’t contact the virus support.

Important: if the recovery was not successful then DO NOT SAVE, you might be able to find another solution to recover your file.

Note: A file that has been recovered using the re_cover command of the virus will NOT return back to its identical form although the virus has recovered your drawings. It will add some proxy graphics object that the virus creators seem to be using to identify that this file has been transformed and recovered and in this case the virus will not transform it again even if AutoCAD was still infected or acad.vlx is in the same directory of your dwg file. This recovered dwg file can be loaded by double clicking on it without the need to go through the Must re_cover! process again (may or may not work this way depending on the virus variant).

Do the same recovery process for every AutoCAD dwg file you need to recover. And when you have no more files to recover, proceed with the following instructions to clean your AutoCAD and computer from the virus.

Cleaning your AutoCAD and computer from the virus:

1. Now that you have recovered your files, it is time to clean up your computer from the virus. Click here to view the Autodesk article Acad.vlx Virus Cleanup. After you do it, anytime you double click on an AutoCAD file and the program launches , it will delete the acad.vlx from the same directory, and will cleanup AutoCAD from the virus.
2. You can also delete all acad.vlx files that have been created. Make a search for it and delete them all.

Now, this is very important: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THIS VIRUS FOR FUN

Do not try to scare your friends or anybody by injecting the acad.vlx file into their work directory and then have their files transformed. Frankly, it is not funny at all, and you may not be able to recover their files, because as I said before:

1. You cannot trust the virus, and you don’t know which variant you have.
2. The recovery process may or may not succeed.
3. Even with successful recovery, the file is not exactly identical to the original one (as I explained before).

Have you faced this problem before? Were you able to recover your files? Did this article help you? You’re welcome to share your thoughts and comments!

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The following was done on Windows XP. For Windows Vista you will see at the bottom of the article direct instructions to view the report log.

An example on how to run CHKDSK that requires scheduling a check on reboot:

-  Using Command Prompt:

1. Click Start, then click Run
2. Type cmd, then click OK, or hit Enter
3. Type chkdsk c: /f
4. Hit the Enter key
5. CHKDSK asks you if you’d like to schedule a check on system restart, type y, then hit the Enter key.
   

   On Reboot Scheduled CHKDSK

6. Restart your computer.

- Using the Graphical User Interface (Error-checking):

1. Double click My Computer.
2. Right click drive C.
3. Click Properties, then click the Tools tab.
4. Under Error-checking section, click the Check Now… button.
5. Check the Automatically fix file system errors checkbox.
6. Click the Start button.
   

   Error-checking (Graphical User Interface)

7. Click Yes for the message that pops up to schedule a check on reboot.
   

   Scheduling disk checking (Error-checking)

8. Restart your computer.

When the system is restarted, the error checking process will begin and you may not want to sit and watch it especially if it takes hours to finish. When it finishes you may miss the report summary because the system won’t pause and wait for you to see it. Fortunately, the process logs an event in the Application Event log that contains the report for the drive checked.

Here is how to view the report log (Windows XP):

1. To open the Event Viewer: click Start, then click Run, then type eventvwr.msc and hit the Enter key. (or Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer).
2. On the left pane and under Event Viewer (local), select Application.
3. On the right pane, search for the first entry in the list that matches Winlogon under the Source Column. (Search top to bottom).
   

   CHKDSK Report Log entry

4. Double click that entry, and there is the log of the disk checking.

And here is how to view the report log on Windows Vista:

1. Click the Vista Start button, and then start typing “Event Viewer” until you see Event Viewer under Programs. Click on it to open the Event Viewer.
2. On the left pane, expand Windows Logs, then select Application.
3. In the middle pane you will see the log entries.  Search for the first entry in the list that matches Wininit under the Source Column. (Search top to bottom).
4. Double click that entry, and there is the log of the disk checking.

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I’ll make it clear from the beginning; When I say physical access, I am not talking about hacking/cracking your computer with password recovery software/disks or using bootable disks to access your data or, worst case, opening your computer’s case and picking up your hard disk. I am also, not referring to any security hole that the technical structure of Windows accounts may pose.

The presumed person who might try to have unauthorized access to your computer might be anyone you know, just having the basic access to your computer; access to the power button and keyboard.

Normally, Windows XP computers have 2 or more accounts that are in the Administrators group. These are: The default Administrator account and another administrator account which is the one that you usually use (you may also have more admin accounts).

What I have seen is that rarely do users have the default Administrator account password protected. This happens because during Windows XP deployment, Windows does not require you to enter a password for that account; you can just keep it blank. With this, the computer is subject to unauthorized access from someone that can get physical access to it.

So how can someone access the computer with the default Administrator Account when it is not password protected (i.e. blank password)?

It depends on how your logon and logoff options are set on your computer, 2 cases:

• Welcome screen is enabled. This is the case where you just click on the user account name to logon. Here, the default Administrator account does not show up. To access it you need to start the computer in Safe Mode. After that, the account will show up on the Welcome screen as Administrator. Since the password is blank, a user needs only to click on that name to have full administrative access to the computer.
  (Please note that if your computer has the default Administrator account as the only admin account, then it will show up in the normal Welcome screen (i.e. not in safe mode) and would probably be the account you are using).
• Welcome screen is disabled. This is the case where you have to type the name of the account as well as the password. Here, the default Administrator account can be accessed by typing Administrator as the account name and leaving the password field blank and then enter. As you have noticed here, the user does not need to enter safe mode to have access.

Now that you know that keeping the default Administrator account password blank is risky, do the following to prevent users from having easy administrative access to your computer:

• Create a password for the account. Login using that account (the above mentions how) and then go to Start, Control Panel, User Accounts. Click on Administrator account and then click Create a password. Fill the fields and click Create Password.
  (You can also create a password for that Account using another account in the Administrators group by using the Computer Management Console).
• Disable the account. If you do not need the default Administrator account, which is usually the case, disable it. To do so,
  1. Logon as your normal admin account and enter the Computer Management Console by right clicking on My Computer then choosing Manage.
  2. Expand System Tools, and then expand Local Users and Groups.
  3. Select Users.
  4. On the right pane, right click on Administrator and choose Properties.
  5. Check the Account is disabled checkbox.
  6. Click OK.

You can do one of the above choices or both. I recommend both (really better and more secure).

(Please note that if the default Administrator account is the only admin account on your computer you DO NOT need to disable anything and would probably be the account your are using).

You may want to see the following:

• To see how to change the log on and off options see the Microsoft KB article, How to change the logon window and the shutdown preferences in Windows XP .
• To see how to start windows in Safe Mode see the Microsoft page, start the computer in safe mode .

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By default, these features are not enabled. However, their associated Keyboard Shortcuts can make them run even if they aren’t enabled. What we are going to do is disable the shortcuts that launch them.

Here is how to completely disable StickyKeys, FilterKeys and ToggleKeys in Windows XP:

1. Choose Start, Control Panel, Accessibility Options. See figure,
   

   Accessibility Options

2. Before you proceed, make sure that Use StickyKeys, Use FilterKeys, and Use ToggleKeys are unchecked.
3. Now, in the StickyKeys section, press the Settings button. Uncheck the Use Shortcut checkbox. See figure,
   

   StickyKeys Settings

4. Click the OK button.
5. Similarly, you can do the same for FilterKeys and ToggleKeys sections (Settings button, uncheck Use Shortcut…)
6. When done, don’t forget to press the OK button in the Accessibility Options dialog to save settings.

Now, these keys should not annoy you again, most likely users get annoyed of them while playing games. They suddenly find themselves kicked out to the Windows desktop. Well, not anymore

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