Lock Your Workstation

I’m sure you are like me when it comes to locking your desktop.  You ALWAYS do it.  Most if not all corporations today have a group policy in place that at least sets the Screen Saver on after a certain amount of time and requires a password for security reasons (User Configuration – Administrative Templates – Control Panel – Personalization – Password protect the screen saver).

You know as well as I do that there is always that one person that seems to always forget to lock their workstation.  Sure the group policy will kick in…eventually.  During that time the system is unlocked and the data vulnerable.

Since i’m such a huge fan of shortcuts I have two for the price of one today.  I will show you two methods to lock your workstation…even for those very forgetful people.

Method 1 (and what I think is the easiest)

By pressing the Windows key and L on the keyboard you effectively lock the system.  I use this one ALL the time.  It is the quickest method that I know.  However some people are not so keyboard shortcut friendly.

Method 2

For the people that prefer to use their mouse here are several steps to create a desktop shortcut.  This method is very similar to the post I had on creating a shortcut for the Network Properties in Server 2008.

1. From where ever you want the shortcut create, Right click and select New –> Shortcut  (I recommend the Desktop)

 

2. Put the following path into location rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

3. Click Next and type whatever you would like the name of the Shortcut Icon to appear as and click Finish.

4. Time to change the way the Icon looks – Right Click on the newly created Shortcut and select Properties

 

5. Click the Change Icon… button and change the path to %SystemRoot%system32SHELL32.dll and now pick whichever Icon you prefer.

 

6. We finally have an icon available to lock the workstation on the Desktop.

 

I personally love when people at work leave their workstations unlocked.  Like a lot of you i’m sure you like to teach that person a lesson.  Perhaps mess with the background…a nice screensaver message on how much they look up to me!