Putting a password on Windows?

[ShinyGreenApple]

I've seen this done before, but I wanted to make sure I don't have a blonde moment and lock myself out of my own computer. I just want to make it so that when the computer is turned on, you have to enter a password before being able to use it, because my nephew is being a little *expletive* and we're revoking his privileges for a bit.

[Broomjockey]

What version of Windows do you have? XP should be "Control Panel" "User Accounts" then select the account and add a password to the account.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Ah, thanks very much! Mom just found some stuff in our history though, and I imagine he won't be getting back online for a long, long time. But I'll be needing to lock it up anyways. Heh.

They're outside helping a neighbor right now, but as soon as they come in, I imagine things are gonna get real ugly real fast. . .

[Broomjockey]

Am I evil for wanting to know how it all goes down?

[ShinyGreenApple]

Not at all

I hate yelling and screaming in the house but this could be interesting. Ah yes, and before running to help the poor sap outside (a long and boring story in itself), she told me to delete his MySpace. Now you tell me, am I evil for taking pleasure in that?

Sheesh, he ought to know better though, too. Mom and I left around noon do to some shopping and scope out possible employment, and I distinctly told him:

"No porn, no gossiping, and no nosing around in my files."

Silly me! I said nothing about raunchy R rated films and horror movies!

And of course he apparently didn't believe me when I said I could go into the history and see all the sites everyone has looked at all week. He was utterly dumbstruck when I brought it up and he got the "What is all this crap?!" speech.

Dumbass.

[Broomjockey]

Now you tell me, am I evil for taking pleasure in that?
<snip>

And of course he apparently didn't believe me when I said I could go into the history and see all the sites everyone has looked at all week. He was utterly dumbstruck when I brought it up and he got the "What is all this crap?!" speech.

Dumbass.

Only a little evil

And geez, that's pretty sad that he's that shocked you found out. There's something like 3 or 4 different places that keep track of where you've been in various fashions. How he didn't know about any of them, and think that there might be more... *shakes head*

[ShinyGreenApple]

Well, we've only recently been letting him do the online thing, and only under the condition that I had all the passwords to all of his accounts. I never showed him the history tabs and things like that, for the very reason that I didn't want him deleting them.

And just now when we asked him why he was looking up places to watch Epic Movie and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he says "I clicked the down arrow on the address bar and it was already there, so you must have already looked at it, LB!"

Um, what? Excuse me? No, I do not view that particular media site. Nor did I put "full texas chainsaw masacrue" into that site's search engine. Nor did I watch a feature length presentation of Epic Movie. Even if I was into shit like that, as well as The Girl Next Door or The Amityville Horror, I would at least know how to spell the titles correctly. And I'm sure it's not mere coincidence that many of the pages visited on that site were episode guides to Genius of the Year's favorite TV show, which I happen to dislike.

I mean honestly, did he really think I was that stupid? That I would magically and falsely remember that I'm interested in all that crap? Egads, I'm not sure what's more insulting, that he thinks I'm thick enough to buy that "Dur, it was already there, I didn't do nothin'!" or that he insinuated I'd look at stuff like that.

And no offense meant, of course, to anyone who does happen to be into raunchy/stupid movies and crappy horror films, but firstly, they ain't my cuppa, and secondly, he would know my parents wouldn't want him into that stuff.

[Broomjockey]

Ah, being a computer nub makes a bit more sense now. But still. "It was already there!" Yeah bub. It was there after you searched for it so you found it the second time. Fairly tragic taste in movies too. Epic Movie? Puh-leeze.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Tell me about it. As if his avid fandom for the Fantastic 4 movies and the 94 version of Godzilla weren't enough. Anywho though, thanks for letting me know how to lock it! If he's dumb enough to think I can't follow through on my promises to look at his history, he's probably dumb enough to download a virus thinking it's the latest episode of Smallville.

[froglet]

If its Windows XP, you may also want to make sure you have an admin password set too, there is a work-around that if he talked to some geek at school and found out about it, he could change or remove the password you just put on, if you want details on how to set one, just say so, or PM me.

[Kogarashi]

Ok, I'll admit that I was vaguely curious about Epic Movie, never having heard what those "_____ Movie" movies were like, beyond being parody. However, I didn't go watch it online or even read the spoiler at Moviespoiler.com. Nope. I read the insult-laden recap at Agonybooth instead. And still feel dirty. Ugh.

I don't ever remember setting an Admin password on my copy of XP, but it's apparently there as when I go into safe mode, I have to enter it (at least, while my computer was still alive. ::sheds a tear:: ). My regular profile, though, doesn't have one at the moment. I'll have to remember to set one when Darling Daughter's old enough to play on the computer. My regular profile has full access.

Multiple places to see what sites have been visited? I only knew about the History tab.

[froglet]

*snip*
Multiple places to see what sites have been visited? I only knew about the History tab.

You can check the pull down menu for a recap, no dates though, or you can get a general idea of what has been browsed using cookies and temp files. Its not 100% accurate, as some of the urls listed could be ads on other pages, but more than likely they were visited.

[PepperElf]

What's funny is when the kids surf porn, delete the history and think "Gee Dad will never figure it out now!"... forgetting that the dad in question works on computer networks for a living.

The guy telling me about that said not only did his son get in trouble for the porn surfing, he also got in trouble for showing it to the younger brother. (and for leaving it on the printer...*doh!*)



also for XP, you can chose to NOT use the regular startup window... the one that shows all the accounts. I use to always pick that option cos it would only show the account name of the last person who logged in, and then you could lock it up simply by pressing control-alt-delete once and picking the "lock computer"

Also... for passwords I'd recommend using one that has both upper & lower case letters, numbers and symbols. They're harder to crack.

It surprised the heck out of my nephew when I went home on vacation and he tried to use my laptop. He figured I'd be using something simple like that cat's name in all small letters. *snicker*. He was also a little grumpy when I let him use the computer...but wouldn't let him know the password. but hey... it's part of the learning process on personal property.

[Geek King]

If you want to really lock it down, look into setting a BIOS password. It will stop the computer before it loads windows, and there are some ways to get around OS-level passwords if he gets with someone who knows what they are doing. Of course, BIOS-level passwords can be gotten around, but its harder. Usually.

[trunks2k]

I remember way back I got in trouble for looking at porn on the computer. Ok, yeah I deserved it. As I got older, I learned how *ahem* hide my tracks, and didn't get in trouble for it because I never got caught. Then in the latter years of high school I was simply too busy to look at it, so I spent several months without looking at it.

Suddenly one day my mom comes downstairs yelling at me. She's saying I was looking at porn and all that stuff, which I hadn't at least not in a few months.

I go to the computer to see what she's talking about and she's looking at the auto-fill of the address bar as she types in a website. The auto fill was bringing up a bunch of a porn sites that had been entered in recently. First of all, I hadn't been looking at anything (recently), second of all those weren't sites I ever used when I did, third of all I'm not dumb enough to leave such obvious evidence behind.

So she's yelling at me and stuff when my dad hears all the yelling. He comes up to see what's going on and it's explained to him. Suddenly there's a look of fear in his eyes and he comes up with most bullshit excuse as to how those sites got in the history (he blamed it on cookies), and that it was nobody's fault. Thankfully, she bought it and I was off the hook.

I knew it was him, but I wasn't going to rat him out -- not directly anyways.