"Someone else is using this computer." - Please read.

[Guest]

I've recently been having a problem with my Dell laptop where when I go to
shut down, it occasionally asks me if I'm sure I want to do this, because
someone else is "using this computer." I only have one profile to be logged
into on my computer; my own. I don't know a lot about this sort of thing, and
would like to know if I should be concerned by this message... as well as
what to do about it. Any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

Some further information:

I am not on my laptop at this time; this is my stepdad's computer, and he
has a separate issue... an error message that started coming up when he had
internet issues a week or so ago, saying: "Windows System Error - There is an
IP address conflict with another system on the network."

Both of these problems came up around the same time... when his internet was
barely working at all, and I was trying to access it as well through
wireless. I don't know if they're connected or not... but it seems these
errors have come up independantly, both on my computer when not using his
wireless, and on his when I'm not.

His internet seems to be working fine now, but I still get the "someone else
is using this computer" message when shutting down occasionally.

Please get back to me if you need more information.

Thank you.

 

[philo]

I've recently been having a problem with my Dell laptop where when I go to
shut down, it occasionally asks me if I'm sure I want to do this, because
someone else is "using this computer." I only have one profile to be logged
into on my computer; my own. I don't know a lot about this sort of thing, and
would like to know if I should be concerned by this message... as well as
what to do about it. Any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

Some further information:

I am not on my laptop at this time; this is my stepdad's computer, and he
has a separate issue... an error message that started coming up when he had
internet issues a week or so ago, saying: "Windows System Error - There is an
IP address conflict with another system on the network."

Both of these problems came up around the same time... when his internet was
barely working at all, and I was trying to access it as well through
wireless. I don't know if they're connected or not... but it seems these
errors have come up independantly, both on my computer when not using his
wireless, and on his when I'm not.

His internet seems to be working fine now, but I still get the "someone else
is using this computer" message when shutting down occasionally.

If you are using a wireless router...
even if your machine is now connected with a cable...
one of your neighbors must be "borrowing" your connection.

Either get rid of your wireless router
or else use encryption...

It's easy to setup and should be in the router access setup

 

[Claymore]

Hello,

How exactly are your computers set up to connect to the internet? Are
both connected via a wireless router? When you set up your internet
connections, did you set one or both computers to connect via the other
computer?

 

[Guest]

The inforational message and question suggests a local area network mapped
drive connection is about to be broken by shutting down your machine. It may
be that someone has inadvertently "mapped" a drive on your PC using your
local area network. It may have ben done on purpose if someone else has
acccess through your wireless router.

 

[John Wunderlich]

I've recently been having a problem with my Dell laptop where when
I go to shut down, it occasionally asks me if I'm sure I want to
do this, because someone else is "using this computer." I only
have one profile to be logged into on my computer; my own. I don't
know a lot about this sort of thing, and would like to know if I
should be concerned by this message... as well as what to do about
it. Any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

Download the following "psloggedon" utility.
The next time this happens, bring up a command prompt and execute it.
It will show you everthing logged into your computer both local and
remote.

<http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/SystemInformation/PsLoggedOn.mspx>

HTH,
John