Unlock workstation without closing session

[Sue Brighton]

Unlock workstation without closing session

For WinNT, Win2000, and WinXP, when a workstation is locked, nobody
but the person who locked that station (not even an admin) can
unlock the station. When an administator tries to unlock the station,
the session will close immediately shutting down all the applications
that are currently running on the system. This often poses a problem
for us. We often see yellow stickies asking people not to touch the
system. Shutting down someones system is simply not an option.

This does not make any sense to me! This, in effect gives a regular
user more power than an administrator who should have absolute control
over the system.

Ideally, as an administrator, I would like to be able to truely unlock the
system. That is, unlock the system without closing the session.

Anyone know how or even if this is possible?

Sue

 

[Guest]

ideally, as an admin, you would have the password to the
account so you can unlock it.

 

[Seeker]

There is the larger philosophical question; should the Administrator be
omnipotent and have 'total control' over any machine in his domain?

The current mechanism provides some protection to the user's data; if the
administrator could simply log in as the user then there would be no
privacy. It all depends on how you view the rights of individuals in your
work place. Where I work, we need to have the IS security team's permission
to look at confidential/personal data, and good cause must exist to allow
that. So if someone unlocks a 3rd party's machine, they better be able to
explain it!

On a more practical level, as a Domain Admin you should be able to connect
to the machine remotely and perform any maintenance that you may need to do.
Consider tools like SMS, ZenWorks or LanDesk, or good old Windows batch
files if the office is too small to justify an enterprise tool.

The bottom line is you may not impersonate as a user; you can kick him out
but unless you had his password, you couldn't log in as him. I would never
give my password to anyone, but that's just me.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

The admin does actually have complete control - they can bypass the logged
in session & close it. Regular users can't - except the user who was logged
in & has locked the workstation.

If you have a policy that users have to log out at X o'clock or on a certain
day for maintenance, and you've notified them of same, well, what can you do
but shut them down, sticky-note aside?

Not sure what you're trying to accomplish, based on your post...under what
circumstances do you face this problem?

 

[nobody]

Have a look at the Transparent Screen Lock at
http://www.e-motional.com/tscreenlock.htm

It has the option to allow admins to unlock