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How to lock down the computer via a shortcut

8 Comments
10 Aug 2008
 by Cristina Mailat | in: Protection, Tutorials

If you don’t have a keyboard with a Window key or simply don’t like the keyboard method, then here’s how you can make a desktop shortcut to lock your computer. Bellow are the instructions used to lock down your computer using a shortcut.

Step 1 – Right click an empty area of your desktop, choose New/Shortcut.
System Lock 1

Step 2 – Copy-and-Paste the command line: rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation as shown below and press the Next button.
System Lock 2

Step 3 – Insert the shortcut name or label <Lock Computer> as shown below. Press the <Finish> button. That’s it.
System Lock 3

Step 4 – You should now is an Icon on your desktop labeled <Lock Computer>. Double-click this Icon to LOCK your computer. You will see a pop-up window displaying the Unlock Computer Password Box.
System Lock 4

You can also lock a PC via a bat file:

This is similar to a Windows shortcut method. But it’s a DOS version. If you’ve never created a bat (batch) file, but would like to try this method, simply open a new text file (such as with Notepad) and type the following commands:

@echo off
rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation
cls

Save the file with a .bat extension, such as Lock.bat, and you’re done. Double click to make the file run.

Published: 10 Aug 2008  by Cristina Mailat, in: Protection, Tutorials Tags: , , RSS feed for comments on this post.

8 Responses to “How to lock down the computer via a shortcut”

  1. Daniel Garman January 14th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    I found that this command does not work on our Windows 2003 Server; however it did work when the comma is removed.

    rundll32.exe user32.dll LockWorkStation

  2.   100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Locking Down Your PC by e-Justice Blog June 15th, 2009 at 6:51 am

    […] How to lock down the computer via a shortcut: Follow this guide and you’ll learn how to create a computer lockdown shortcut. […]

  3. p May 2nd, 2010 at 7:07 am

    what is the password to unlock it?

  4. xander June 9th, 2011 at 4:08 am

    doubt in trying it, there is no no instruction to on how to unlock it

  5. ram August 28th, 2011 at 7:23 am

    how to open the lock

  6. Michael June 16th, 2012 at 1:09 am

    That or simply do a windows key+L on your keyboard.

  7. Kiran Kumar September 18th, 2013 at 10:54 pm

    Once the system is restarted the shortcut key is not working.
    the shortcut created workes, but the shortcut key assigned is disabled or dosent work.

  8. John Czuba May 3rd, 2016 at 8:35 pm

    If you’re running window 7 or higher, this works fine. save it as a .bat file and to unlock it – type your domain password in. For example if you went to control panel and created a required password to log into your PC, you would use that password.

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