https://tryhackme.com/room/windowsfundamentals1xbx
Task 1 Introduction to Windows
For these tasks I was given the username administrator and password letmein123! for the windows machine.
This task just made sure I was able to connect.
No answer neededTask 2 Windows Editions
What encryption can you enable on Pro that you can’t enable in Home?
BitLocker is a hard drive level encryption for the Windows operating system that is available on Pro but not Home versions.
BitLockerTask 3 The Desktop (GUI)
Which selection will hide/disable the Search box?
First I right clicked the taskbar, then clicked Search from the menu bar that opened, then Hidden in the submenu.
This setting diabled the taskbar search field.
HiddenWhich selection will hide/disable the Task View button?
To disable the Task View button I right clicked the task bar and unchecked the Show Task View button option.
Show Task View buttonBesides Clock and Network, what other icon is visible in the Notification Area?
On the far right side of the Windows Taskbar is the Notification Area. The Action Center is to the right of the network connection icon and time/date. This menu allows access to additional settings and shows system notifications.
Action CenterTask 4 The File System
Windows uses a file system format called NTFS (New Technology File System). It has additional functionality compared to previously created file systems like FAT, such as automatically repairing corrupted files in case of failure. This is done using a log file that NTFS saves in its structure. NTFS can also support larger file sizes (4GB+), allows permissions settings for different users, and allows for compression/encryption of data.
What is the meaning of NTFS?
New Technology File SystemTask 5 The Windows\System32 Folders
Per Microsoft,
“Environment variables store information about the operating system environment. This information includes details such as the operating system path, the number of processors used by the operating system, and the location of temporary folders”.
What is the system variable for the Windows folder?
According to the Task 5 text:
The Windows folder (
C:\Windows) is traditionally known as the folder which contains the Windows operating system.The folder doesn’t have to reside in the C drive necessarily. It can reside in any other drive and technically can reside in a different folder.
This is where environment variables, more specifically system environment variables, come into play. Even though not discussed yet, the system environment variable for the Windows directory is
%windir%.
%windir%Task 6 User Accounts, Profiles, and Permissions
What is the name of the other user account?
To find other user accounts on the Windows machine I right clicked the Start Menu, then clicked Run.
When the Run window opened up I gave the command lusrmgr.msc and clicked OK.
This opened the Local Users and Groups menu. I then clicked Users in the left side bar. This displayed local users on this machine. I noticed the user tryhackmebilly first as a non-default user.
tryhackmebillyWhat groups is this user a member of?
In order to find the groups this user, tryhackmebilly was a member of I double clicked the user in the previous menu which opened the user Properties menu. I then clicked the Member Of tab and noticed the Remote Desktop Users and Users groups.
Remote Desktop Users,UsersWhat built-in account is for guest access to the computer?
Looking at the Local Users and Groups menu from before I also saw a Guest account.
GuestWhat is the account status?
I double-clicked the Guest user and discovered the account had been disabled.
Account is disabledTask 7 User Account Control
UAC is a tool developed by Microsoft to protect Windows users from malware. If malware were able to be run on a computer it would have the level of access of the currently logged-in user. If the average user is logged in with admin rights this would give that level of access to the malware. UAC works by running sessions in lower level permissions and requires confirmation from the user before running anything with higher level permissions.
What does UAC mean?
User Account ControlTask 8 Settings and the Control Panel
In the Control Panel, change the view to Small icons. What is the last setting in the Control Panel view?
To get to the Control Panel I clicked the Start Menu then selected Control Panel from the menu. I could have also searched Control Panel in the search bar and hit [ENTER].
To find the answer to the question, I changed the View by: setting from Category to Small icons. This showed the Windows Defender Firewall setting as the last one in the list.
Windows Defender FirewallTask 9 Task Manager
Task Manager provides system performance information as well as a list of running programs and processes.
To get to Task Manager you can either right click the Start Menu/Taskbar, search Task Manager in the search bar, or use the key command Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
More details will give a breakdown of how many resources are being take up by each process. To get more information displayed, right click the column name bar and select more details.
For instance, adding Command line will show which command was used to start each App/process.
What is the keyboard shortcut to open Task Manager?
Ctrl+Shift+Esc