Unlock workstation without logging out current user

[Guest]

Does anyone know of a way to unlock a workstation without logging out the
currently logged in user? Say I want to unlock a workstation that a user has
walked away from (and that I don't know the password for) and see what they
last had on the screen. We are currently experiencing an issue where
secretaries bring things up for execs, then go to lunch or what not. But they
have documents that they brought up for the exec. So by logging them out to
unlock the workstation we lose those documents, until the user gets back to
bring them up again.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

Does anyone know of a way to unlock a workstation without logging out the
currently logged in user? Say I want to unlock a workstation that a user has
walked away from (and that I don't know the password for) and see what they
last had on the screen. We are currently experiencing an issue where
secretaries bring things up for execs, then go to lunch or what not. But they
have documents that they brought up for the exec. So by logging them out to
unlock the workstation we lose those documents, until the user gets back to
bring them up again.

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

Sorry, what you want is not possible...

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to losing documents until the user
gets back to bring them up again. If a workstation is locked, it may only be
unlocked by the person who locked it OR an administrator on the machine. In
this case, the desktop will appear just as the person who locked the
workstation left it. The only other choice is to reboot the machine. If
this occurs, any unsaved changes to original documents WILL BE LOST. There
is no bringing them back except to rekey changes. However, because it is an
abnormal shutdown, Microsfoft Office documents may be retrieved from recovery
files as of the last time the Enter key is pressed, if auto-recover settings
are turned on.

Note: I had a boss once (bit of a moron) who worked on a Word document for
hours without ever saving it, including when he closed Word. He thought that
auto-recover was saving the file for him. What he learned the hard way is
that auto-recover does not save the document if the user closes it normally.
It only allows you to recover from an an abnormal end.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

If you're running XP outside of a domain environment, enable Fast User Switching. This allows multiple users to remain logged in, while only one is "actively" in control of the computer. The user(s) that are running in the background will still have their applications running.

If you're in a domain environment, Fast User Switching cannot be enabled.