Lock a computer while upgrade - but allow admin behind the scenes? Possible?

[siuko]

Is there anyways to lock a Windows XP workstation with a specific message on the screen such as

 

"This workstation is being upgraded - if you require urgent access please contact IT Support"

 

But allow an admin user to remotely do updates behind the scenes?

 

I know that terminal services can do something similar on Servers but is it possible for workstations?

[Geoff]

I don't know about a custom messsage but if you Remote Desktop into a client PC it will lock the machine (as if you had hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and chosen 'lock workstation').

[siuko]

Cool well thats a start... I will look at Remote Desktop first.

[ricki]

HI

 

Have a look at abtutor you can lock machines and customize messages to students. Word of warning. Students and staff turn machines off even with messages and they dont care if they break the machine by doing it

 

Richard

[gerardsweeney]

Hi, there..

 

I've no idea if this is close to what you're after, but for part of our Altiris imaging deployment, I wrote a kludgy little AutoIt script which changes the wallpaper of the logon screen (the one behind the CTRL-ALT-DEL bit) to be bright red with a warning.

 

 

We run this out whenever we're installing something chunky or which needs a reboot.

 

We run it with:

 

LOGONWALLPAPER.EXE $REASON="Installing XP SP3"

 

to get

 

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THIS COMPUTER

Installing [x]

 

 

If you just run LOGONWALLPAPER.EXE without the $REASON bit, then it sets it back to our standard logon wallpaper.

 

The coding is horrific and has only ever been written for XP, but it's served us well enough for the last 18 months.

 

If it would be of interest, give me a shout.

 

 

Alternatively, Altirigos has a posting on much the same thing (where I also plugged my shonky script heh)..

 

Splash Screen (Configuring Computer) - Altirigos

 

might be of particular interest, as it apparently lets you disable the keyboard and mouse.

I didn't do that because I wanted to avoid a situation where something went wrong with whatever I was installing and I couldn't log into see what was up (OK, I could use RDP, but you get what I mean!!)

 

Any of the above of any use?

 

Regards,

Gerard

[AngryTechnician]

UltraVNC used to have a feature which would cover the screen with a bitmap of your choice even when you were remotely working on the machine. Unfortunately it kept breaking with various updates and there was never much enthusiasm from the developers for fixing it each time I reported it broken again. I no longer use it, so I've no idea whether it works in current releases.

 

ricki is quite right to suggest that students and staff alike will routinely ignore such messages and happily turn the machine off and back on, thinking that you've just forgotten about it.

[oalcock]

If you just use MSTSC, it will lock the computer whilst you are remoted into it.