The main requirement is a webcam, as it is used by the software to recognize the user’s face. Faces need to be registered and associated with Windows profiles. This step is best undertaken right after installation of Blink. It is a one time process to setup the face recognition system properly.

face recognition software

face recognition software2 blink

windows login

Two basic steps need to be completed for every user account. The user needs to look into the webcam during the configuration, so that Blink can add the face to the database. Once the face has been recognized the Windows username and password need to be supplied. Those are then automatically used by Blink! to log in the user if the facial recognition was successful.

From that moment on, registered users can log into Windows by looking into their webcam. This works on fresh starts, on locked computers, after hibernation, standby and every other possible computer state.

howitworks1

It is however still possible to log in normally by entering the password of the account with the computer keyboard. That’s a fallback if the webcam happens to be not available at that time, or the face recognition software fails to recognize the face of the user.

Blink! can be disabled at anytime, which takes effect on the next login attempt. The software is freely available for personal use. Downloads for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 are provided on the developer website.

Windows Logon Notifier has been created with users of unsupported editions, and users who prefer a direct way of editing the Windows Logon Notifier, in mind.

The portable program displays all necessary parameters after it has been started.

To be precise, if gives the user the opportunity to configure a notification title and text. Both the title and text can be edited by simply clicking into the relevant fields.

windows logon notifier

A click on Add Message sets the message as the new login notification, which will be displayed to all users who log onto the system.

Notifications can be removed again with the Remove Message button in the program interface.

Windows Logon Notifier is a lightweight program for Windows 7. The developer mentions that it may work under Vista as well, but that is has not been tested.

Download is provided at the Windows Club website.

I know that a lot of users reinstall Windows if they have forgotten their password because they cannot figure out how to get into the system again. I’m using the Trinity Rescue Kit to reset the Windows password. You actually have the choice between setting it to a blank password or changing it to a new one.

It can be run from a bootable CD, USB device or network over PXE. The bootable CD is my choice and I always keep one around in case of emergency. Just boot from the CD if you cannot login into Windows anymore because it asks for a password that you cannot remember.

You can start once the message “Welcome to Trinity..” appears on the screen. Use the command winpass -l to list all usernames of the system. Now enter winpass -u (for instance winpass -u Martin). This will lead to a series of dialogs, make sure to press n when asked if you want to deactivate Syskey.

You are given a choice to (1) remove the password, (2) set a new password or (3) make the selected user an administrator of the system.

That’s actually just one tool that the Trinity Rescue Disk offers. I could write about other useful ones if you like. Oh, one last remark. The file system is based on Linux which means that you will not see the usual c,d,e drives like you do in Windows. Hda, hdb, hdc are the hard drives connected to your computer and the numbers behind are the partitions of those hard drives. Hda1 for instance means the first partition of the first hard drive which is usually the location of the Windows installation while hdc2 would refer to the second partition of the third hard drive.