Password Protected Wakre-up & Screen Saver

[WJB]

Hi,

I have two questions regarding Vista:

1. I've set my Power options to display the Logon screen when waking up
after a sleep. However, logon is bypassed as if it were not pretected. When
the screen saver kicks in, however, the logon screen is displayed and I must
log in. Any idea why the discrepancy?

2. Also, what is the screen saver exe and where it is located? In the past,
it used to be the OSA.EXE executable that comes as part of MS Office.

Thanks

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

1) Do you have an actual password set? If not, that could explain it as
unpassword systems will not use security settings properly.

2) Osa.exe is not and was not a screensaver. It is an MS Office component
that aids in loading the various applications. The screensavers, normally
..scr files, are found under C:Windows\System32.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[WJB]

Thank you for your response, Rick.

1. I do have a password set for my account and the option to password
protect on wake-up (in the Power Settings) is also set.
2. I wasn't actually asking about the screen saver files themselves but
rather about the program that invokes and displays them. For XP and older
systems, I used to have a shortcut to OSA.EXE that when clicked, it would run
and display whatever screen saver is the current default, along with locking
the system. Clicking the Lock this computer button locks the computer but
does not invoke the screen saver which will only kick in after the delay has
expired. I'd like it to kick in immediately.
Do you know what the executable's name is?

Thanks again.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

For 2, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/learnmore/tips/schnoll1.mspx
which shows how to create a shortcut to the lockdown. If you simply want to
go straight to the screensaver, use the same procedure to create a path to
your preferred .scr file.

For 1, go into the advanced power settings ("change settings that are
currently unavailable"), you may need to enable it there.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[WJB]

Thanks again, Rick. I'll try your suggestion for #2. As for #1, I've already
checked that and it is enabled. This is what I actually meant by:

"I do have a password set for my account and the option to password protect
on wake-up (in the Power Settings) is also set."

Is it possible that there is a bug somewhere? I even tried disabling it then
re-enabling it again with and without a reboot in between. Still, Vista asks
for my password after a computer lock but not after a sleep!

 

[WJB]

A little more confusion. After posting my last reply. I again disabled the
passowrd protection via the advanced power settings ("change settings that
are currently unavailable"), rebooted, then re-enabled it again. I then put
the computer to "sleep" followed by a resume wake-up. This time it "took".
I'm guessing that there is a problem somewhere and that resetting this
setting then setting it again, with a reboot in between causes Vista to
finally "remember" this setting.

BTW, there seems to be other areas that have a similar problem. One notable
case is Outlook which at times seems to forget the various account login
passwords and keeps asking for them, although from various posts, this looks
like a corruption of the .pst file. Oh well!

Thanks again, Rick, for your reposnses.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------