Somebody Stole My Laptop

  • Thread starter Thread starter marco
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marco

Somebody stole my laptop and stupid me had autologon enabled. I KNOW the
cops wont get it back so if I see it online, and I can if they don't mess
with my settings, I can remote desktop to it. How can I completely screw
the system either by de-activating windows or deleting boot files or what?
Grrrrrrr! Hopefully if they are stupid enough to be thieves they'll be too
stupid to understand how to protect themselves. (maybe not as stupid as me
though) I just want to make his (or her) life a little difficult at least!
 
marco said:
Somebody stole my laptop and stupid me had autologon enabled. I KNOW the
cops wont get it back so if I see it online, and I can if they don't mess
with my settings, I can remote desktop to it. How can I completely screw
the system either by de-activating windows or deleting boot files or what?
Grrrrrrr! Hopefully if they are stupid enough to be thieves they'll be too
stupid to understand how to protect themselves. (maybe not as stupid as
me though) I just want to make his (or her) life a little difficult at
least!
Click to expand...

Go to a command prompt.

format c: /q /u
 
marco said:
Somebody stole my laptop and stupid me had autologon enabled. I KNOW the cops wont get it
back so if I see it online, and I can if they don't mess with my settings, I can remote
desktop to it. How can I completely screw the system either by de-activating windows or
deleting boot files or what? Grrrrrrr! Hopefully if they are stupid enough to be thieves
they'll be too stupid to understand how to protect themselves. (maybe not as stupid as me
though) I just want to make his (or her) life a little difficult at least!
Click to expand...

I know this doesn't help you now, but this situation is exactly what
BitLocker was made for. It's a shame BitLocker is only included in
the Ultimate and Enterprise versions. Of course, it wouldn't help you
get it back, but it sure would make using the laptop very difficult for the
thieves, and protect any sensitive info you may have on there.


-Michael
 
Would this work when logged on? I thought of it but believed it wouldn't be
possible from within Windows. Ha ha - as you can understand I'm rather
reluctant to test it on my Desktop!
 
But maybe I could schedule it to run at boot time. How would I DO that. We
don't have autoexec.bat anymore!
 
You can try it on your present computer. You can't format the system
partition when you are using the system partition.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User
 
Yeah - I guessed so. Ha - not that I don't trust you - especially with your
credentials, but I'm still not going to try it!
What would you suggest?
 
But maybe I could schedule it to run at boot time. How would I DO that. We
don't have autoexec.bat anymore!
Click to expand...

Why worry about it? Chances are you'll never see it again. Whoever
stole your laptop didn't steal it for Windows. They stole it to SELL
and couldn't care less what software was installed.
 
Just for giggles, I did! The very last line of text is telling you that you
can't do that.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User
 
marco said:
Somebody stole my laptop and stupid me had autologon enabled. I KNOW the
cops wont get it back so if I see it online, and I can if they don't mess
with my settings, I can remote desktop to it. How can I completely screw
the system either by de-activating windows or deleting boot files or what?
Grrrrrrr! Hopefully if they are stupid enough to be thieves they'll be too
stupid to understand how to protect themselves. (maybe not as stupid as
me though) I just want to make his (or her) life a little difficult at
least!
Click to expand...


You could always leave it with you being able to log in. You could gather
information that way about the thieves for the benefit of the police.
 
Well - a person is not safe in his own home these days - I wish I'd had it
in bed with me!
But I figure, if I get the chance, I can just - re-enable the logon
screen - then what will he do? I trust Vista is secure enough that he'll
have to re-format and re-install something to get in there! and even pirated
copies of XP are a little more complicated these days. Hopefully he'll be
running windows ME - that'll teach him a lesson!
 
Hey I just thought - I still have the installation disk - If I get a new
machine - I'm insured - and I activate my new installation no doubt by
phone- what will happen to their installation?
 
There is hope. (-:

You could create a task in Task Scheduler with the following:

C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe /s /t 001

In the General Tab you would set it up to run whether the user is logged in
or not, run with the highest privileges and hidden.

In the Triggers Tab you would make the task run at startup and make sure the
box is checked to make sure it is enabled.

In the Actions Tab you would choose Start a program and place this in the
program/script line:
C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe /s /t 001

In the Conditions Tab you would remove all checks.

In the Settings Tab, remove all checks.

What this should do is run the script during startup. The computer would
shutdown within one second. There would not be enough time for the average
user to abort the shutdown. This will keep happening until someone with
enough computer smarts solves as how to fix the problem.


--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User
 
Ha ha - I like it!
I just don't want them to enjoy their ill gotten goods without a little
pain!

Good idea Richard - Thank you!
 
I put up some burglar bars this past weekend, so, I feel a little safe.
 
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