Timed Out Forced Back to Login Screen?

I set up separate account for each member of my family on the new PC. I would like set things up so when any of the accounts are inactive for 20 minutes it will go back to the login screen rather than a screen saver. Is that possible?

When Vista times out it goes to the login screen if the account uses a password. As administrator, I use a password. The rest of my family does not.



I want to go to the login screen because my family is too lazy to exit the current account and click into their own. They tend to use whatever account is on the screen, then complain that others make changes to "their" desktop. If I can make the timed-out account go back to the login screen, then loging into their own account will take the same effort as going to the account of someone else.



Can it be done?

djohnso7 said:

I set up separate account for each member of my family on the new PC. I would like set things up so when any of the accounts are inactive for 20 minutes it will go back to the login screen rather than a screen saver. Is that possible?

When Vista times out it goes to the login screen if the account uses a password. As administrator, I use a password. The rest of my family does not.



I want to go to the login screen because my family is too lazy to exit the current account and click into their own. They tend to use whatever account is on the screen, then complain that others make changes to "their" desktop. If I can make the timed-out account go back to the login screen, then loging into their own account will take the same effort as going to the account of someone else.



Can it be done?

Click to expand...

The only solution that I can think of at the moment is to use the "On Resume, display logon screen" option in the screensaver, as shown in this screenshot:

To change the screensaver:

1. Right-click an empty area of the desktop, then select "Personalize"
2. Click on "Screen Saver"

You may want to consider adding passwords to all the user accounts, and changing all but one (yours) to limited accounts, especially for your younger children. That way you can also enable Parental Controls that you can use to monitor their computer usage or restrict the times that they can use the computer, amoungst others. For more information on Parental Controls, view this tutorial - http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/95143-parental-controls-time-limits.html.

Hi,

This can be achieved by using the 'Task Scheduler'. Follow the instructions below.

1) Click the start orb, type 'Task Scheduler' into the search box and press enter/return. The 'Task Scheduler' dialogue will appear.

2) In the left hand column, click 'Task Scheduler Library' and then in the right hand column 'Actions' click 'Create Task...'. The 'Create Task' dialogue will open.

3) Click the 'General' tab. Give the task a meaningful name and description e.g. 'AutoRestart' for the name and 'Automatically restart
after period of inactivity.' for the description. Also click the checkbox marked 'Hidden'.

4) Click the 'Triggers' tab and click 'New...'. On the dialogue that appears, click on the drop-down box next to 'Begin the task:' and select
'On idle'. In the 'Advanced settings' panel, ensure that the checkbox marked 'Enabled' has a tick in it. Click 'OK'.

5) Click the 'Actions' tab and click 'New...'. The default setting for this dialogue, 'Start a program', is what is required, so in the 'Settings' panel do the following. In the box under 'Program/script:' enter 'C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe'. In the 'Add arguments (optional):' box enter '/r /t 60 /c "The computer will restart in 1 minute. Please save any work. This action cannot be aborted."'. Click 'OK'.

6) The settings under the 'Conditions' and 'Settings' tabs are fine with their defaults, so click on 'OK'.

7) Note that because you clicked 'Hidden' above, this task will not appear in the scheduler. To show this task, in the right hand column 'Actions' click 'View' and check 'Show Hidden Tasks'. Remember to uncheck this if you want to hide the task again.

8) Close the 'Task Scheduler'. The task will begin running. After a period of inactivity of approximately 15 minutes, the computer will execute the task.

9) This is taken from the 'Help' dialogue.

"The Task Scheduler service will check if the computer is in an idle state every 15 minutes. A computer is considered to be in an idle state when a screen saver is running. If a screen saver is not running, then the computer is considered to be in an idle state if there is 0% CPU usage and 0% disk input or output for 90% of the past fifteen minutes and if there is no keyboard or mouse input during this period of time. Once the Task Scheduler service detects that the computer is in an idle state, the service only waits for user input to mark the end of the idle state."

For those interested, here is the code.


Hope that this helps.
Dwarf