Syskey for Windows
Of course I am not a windows person, but I felt that I should share this since lot of people will find it helpful. Putting a password for your computer is a very good thing, it won’t prevent anyone from finally getting the data but at least make it harder for them to get in. There is of course the default windows username/password system, which you can control by going to the User Control panel.
On top of that, you can add a adition password which will be asked right before even the login screen loads. To do this, simply go to RUN and type syskey and then click on update. You should now be looking at a window that ask you to either enter the password manually, store the syskey in a floppy, or to have it stored locally (default). Select the “password at startup” and enter the desired password. Or you can select to store the syskey in a floppy, which you will have to put into the computer or it will not log you in.
Once you set the syskey password, the next time you reboot it will ask for Syskey password first, once you sucessfully enter that then you will be prompted to the username/password screen. Again, the syskey system can also be disabled but is slightly trickier than reseting the username linked passwords using the sam file.
Of course if you really want good security use encryption such as PGP or switch to a more safer operating system. Hopefully you found this useful, commend if you have anything to add.