Passwords on Computers

[DKruskie]

Is there a way to put a password on my comp that will come up before it boots. I ask this because my boys like to get up in the wee hours of the morning to play games, so me and my wife put a password on the comp and sure enough the next morning they had hit the F10 key to cause a non crash recovery and I spent the next few hours redoing all of our apps we had. Someone had told me this was called a master password, so guess I would like to know if this could be cancelled by hitting the F10 key like my boys did, and how would i go about setting one up.


David

[holistic]

Have a read here

http://www.softstack.com/password/password_protect-my.html

There is no way to prevent someone from gaining access to your harddrive ( Operating System) short of removing it. Or lock the kids in the room

Try a BIOS password protection. This can be circumvented by removing the battery and clearing the CMOS (memory) with a jumper.

I suggest you invest in a hardrive caddy ( first link in google : http://www.pcsystems.com.au/category46_1.htm )

Buy 2 identical drives 1 for the kids . 1 for you .

Watch out your kids don't get smarter than you .
My 4 year old already knows how to turn the computer on and open the CD tray...............as soon as he can add $1,000,000 to my chequing account is the day i retire ...

[vitualis]

For ultimate security, as the suggestion above ... removable HDD bay. After you finish working with your computer, take out the HDD.

Alternatively you could just get your kids a separate PC/games console...

Regards.

[Jukka]

What version of Windows are you using? If it is 2000 or XP why not just set up a logon password?

[AND1]

Or you can download this program that locks any .exe file. By this I mean "anyprogram.exe" when is locked can't be opened without a password.

So if you dont want them talking either. Just block AIM.exe and they will not be able to start AIM without a password.

This is only for .exe files. There are others to lock folders too.

[DKruskie]

Jukka:
I'm using xp, but I already have a logon password, this is why my boys hit F10 because they didnt know the password.


David

[Jukka]

So you're telling me that if you have XP (with passwords) you can just hit F10 to bypass it all - now thats what I call security!

[freak_in_cage_10k]

AND1- outta interest, what is the name of this program which asks for a password whenever you try to open an exe file? would be good to have!

[AND1]

It's called Akala EXE Lock 3.0

[freak_in_cage_10k]

cheers dude

[rallynavvie]

Setting a BIOS password should suffice. It's tough to get around as close to a hardware password as that. I doubt they'd be daring enough to try jumping the BIOS else I'd ground 'em for good

[Greg12]

setting a bios password will work well, so will using login passwords.

Those can only be bipassed by the master account n hopefully they dont' know that. (The password u choice when u installed XP)

[THE_SAINT33]

im confused, you can bypass the windows xp password by just hitting F10?

[Greg12]

Ill check this tonight w/ my Windows XP professional.


Seeing that i'm taking my laptop to Japan, this will be a major security issue, (I plan to place bios passwords)