Script for Setting Screen Saver Password

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I’ve looked in all of the Windows ME posts and can’t find the exact situation I’m trying to solve. Any help is appreciated!

We have a WinME standalone PC in a patient education area. Patients will be going to the Internet researching patient education information. They will be assisted by paid staff. So far no big deal.

We want to prevent unauthorized folks from using this PC during the off hours. Obviously, Windows passwords aren’t the answer since you can simply “cancel” to get around them. We have no problem turning on a screen saver password. Unfortunately, all someone has to do is to turn the system off and then on to get around the screen saver password.

Going WAY back to my DOS days, I thought maybe we could add a line to the autoexec.bat that turns on the screen saver at some point after startup but before they can do anything with Windows. Can it be done and what would the command be? And, yes I know going to WinNT or WinXP would solve this but it isn’t an option (let’s not go there!).

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If it weren’t Windows ME, there are policy settings that will disallow use of the computer unless the user is authenticated, and you could then call the screen saver from the startup group. The problem here is that the Win9x architecture is inherently insecure, so it will never truly be “safe.” Sadly, since ME is not intended for anyone but a home user, it’s not a good idea – but perhaps a downgrade to Windows 98 would work? More information is available here:

• The Policy Editor Tool Is Not Supported in Windows Millennium Edition (266271)[/list]Let’s hope someone else has a better answer than that!

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If you don’t need to leave the machine turned on 24/7, you could put a BIOS password in that would prevent someone from even booting the computer. Of course, you’d need to be willing to CAREFULLY open up the BIOS to make such a change and for some, that’s a frightening thought. And if you do it, you need to WRITE DOWN that password and store it someplace safe, maybe locked, ’cause I don’t know if you can “hack” your way around a forgotten BIOS password, except maybe by taking out the PC’s battery for awhile!

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Stand-alone – meaning not connected to any network at all, as opposed to not needing any network connection for Internet access?

Are you simply wishing to prevent use of the pc for any purpose outside set hours?

How computer literate are those persons whom you wish to prevent accessing the PC?
(I’m wondering if the screensaver could be set to start using scheduler or something…)

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