Lock Workstation

Did you know there are keyboard shortcuts other than CRTL+ALT+DEL that you can use to lock your desktop? Locking the workstation will prevent people from walking up and snooping on your computer. To save a keystroke you can simultaneously press the Windows key and the L key at the same time. The Windows key has four wavy squares.

Or, to make things even easier, create a desktop shortcut.

Right click on the Windows Desktop and select New - Shortcut from the pop up menu.


On the Create Shortcut window, type in the location or copy the following text and paste it into thelocation field, rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation Click Next when done.

Type in a name for the shortcut, for this example I
used Lock Workstation. Click Finish when done.

A new shiny desktop icon!

Bonus Points! Changing the icon pic.

Right click on the desktop shortcut and select Properties from the pop up menu.

Click the Change Icon button.

Click the Browse button.

To browse to the Windows Icon file, make sure you are in the System 32 folder, and find the Shell32.dll file and click on it.

There are hundres of Icons and for this example I’m going to find the icon that looks like a red power button, and click on on it. Then click on OK.

Click Apply and OK.

How about that!

Credit for this information goes to Dale Rapp with the Parkway Technology Department.