Tell if Win2000 or XP is inactive

[Larry Bates]

Why not just use screensaver that begins after your
"unused/inactive" time period and check the On resume,
password protect" box (XP).  They have to log back in to
do anything.  Doesn't really log them "out", but if they
have applications loaded, logging them out is going to
be difficult (e.g. what do you do with any dialogs that
may appear asking about unsaved work) and may not be what
you really want.  This should "protect" the unattended
machine (which is what the auditors want) and your users.

HTH,
Larry Bates
Syscon, Inc.

"Bart Nessux" <bart_nessux at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:cd63c7$1bq$1 at solaris.cc.vt.edu...
> Hello,
>
> Auditors want us to log out a user if the computer they are logged onto
> has been unused/inactive for a set period of time. It's trivial to
> logout the user, but we're having trouble telling if the system is
> indeed inactive. If we could learn that information, then we'd need to
> measure how long it has been like this so we can all the logout
> function. How might this determination and measurement be approached?
>
> We're using Python 2.3.x w/o Mr. Hammonds extra Windows extensions. We
> do not want to install the win32 extensions.
>
> Thanks,
> Bart