Sunday, 20 May 2012, 6:55PM

Computer security at the office

This article shows you how you can protect your computer at work from prying eyes when you've stepped away from your desk. You don't need any fancy third-party software. As long as you have a password set for your Windows user account you can lock your workstation in one of the following ways:
1. Automatically when the screensaver starts
2. Manually by pressing a keyboard combination
3. Manually by clicking a shortcut on the desktop

These instructions have been written for Windows Vista and Windows 7. The same features exist in Windows XP but the methods will differ to some degree.

First of all, if you don't already have a password set on your account you can either work your way through Control Panel or simply hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and then choose "Change Password"

 

Lock the computer when the screensaver starts

To change the screensaver settings you can either right click on the desktop and choose "Personalize" then click on the Screensaver link in the bottom right of the screen, or you can type "screensaver" into the search bar and select "Turn the screensaver on or off" from the list of options.

Select a screensaver type, a suitable wait time, and make sure the checkbox is ticked. The time in this example is set to 10 minutes but this may be too soon or too long depending on your work situation. If you're always getting out of your chair to do something for a few minutes at a time you may want to extend the wait time as it will become annoying having the screen timeout on you. If you are in an office where there is a lot of human traffic you may want to shorten the delay time.

 

 

 

Lock the computer with a keyboard combination

Rather than waiting for the screensaver to start and protect your system you can instantly lock it by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and selecting "Lock this computer".

 

 

Lock the computer with a desktop shortcut

This process is a little more involved but can be useful if you can't free up your hands to use the method above.

Right click on the desktop and select "New", "Shortcut".

Type the following (or copy and paste this text) into the dialog box: "rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation", then press next.

 

 

Create a name for the shortcut, "Lock Computer" for example, then click "Finish".

 

 

The shortcut will now be on your desktop and will take on the default icon and may look like this one here. If you want something a little more interesting you can choose a different look for your shortcut.

 

Start by right clicking the icon you just made and select "Properties". Select the "Shortcut" tab and then click the "Change Icon" button. Delete the text that's in the box below "Look for icons in this file" and type "shell32.dll". Now you can select any icon you want. Hit "OK" twice to finish.

 

 

Your shortcut should now look a little more distinctive.