Outsmarting an 11 year old

Gopher_By_Fende · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:17

Hey guys,

my friends kid has a computer in her room, and they only want her to be able to use it until 8pm (9 at weekends).

I've set up the logon hours in the command line so she cannot logon after those times, but the problem is she aint stupid and she has already realised that if she is logged in before this time, it won't kick her off, so shes playing games all night.

As she uses the pc for a dvd player at night as well, i made a second logon with access only to power dvd with no time restrictions.

i've searched the net for answers, and tried a few programs like activeexit, but none of them are suitable. It needs to force a specific user to log off at a set time, and the program needs to be protected so she can't get into it.

If anyone can suggest anything me and my friends would be very grateful

Cheers

Gopher

lukeharvest · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:21

Tell 'em to tell her to go to her room at 9PM scream at her a little bit. Pull the plug then send her to bed!

TheNuju · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:25

Heh quite simple really, put a timer on the plug

Luke284 · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:26

not sure if this is possible, but can you set up a scheduled task to log her off at a given time?

malccy · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:28

Keep her pc downstairs and just buy her a £17 dvd player to watch her DVD's?

lukeharvest · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:28

I wouldn't really pull the plug on a PC it damages the PC components and Windows...

Mr Gimp · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:31

Smacked arse and take the kettle leads away. Jobs a good un.

stickroad · 3 Jan 2007 at 19:34

or when you want her to come of the pc and go to bed why dont you just take the power lead out of her room

furnace · 3 Jan 2007 at 20:37

Does she need to be warned that it's gonna shut down, or is it OK if it just shuts down with no warning?

EDIT:

I've written a program in VB6 if you want it, it does what you need and runs in the background if you put it in startup. It's easily closeable with ctrl+alt+delete -> task manager but hidden otherwise... Let me know if you want it!

hungryhungry123 · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:05

Try a scheduled batch file, the command to log off is

shutdown -L

t31os · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:07

You could do it with a Shutdown shortcut and a scheduled task, then lock down access to scheduled tasks.

Or use the script furnace made adding it into the startup folder, then preventing access to the startup folder.

Not sure how you'd go preventing access to the startup folder, but i'm pretty sure you can lock a user out from a scheduled task.

A shutdown shortcut is easy to create, and it doesnt ask for a comfirmation, it simply shuts down.

GAMEfreak · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:07

i forget how its done, but for example, netblaster used to force a shutdown. if you research it a bit you could cause the pc to shutdown at a certain without much trouble.

t31os · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:08

hungryhungry123 said:
Try a scheduled batch file, the command to log off is

shutdown -L

Same thing i was getting at i think..... not quite as smart as your idea though...

oops..

BillytheImpaler · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:09

Luke284 said:
not sure if this is possible, but can you set up a scheduled task to log her off at a given time?

Yep, it's shutdown.exe or logout.exe, depending on what you want it to do. Both are located in C:\WINDOWS\System32\

hungryhungry123's suggestion would do just fine as well.

t31os · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:09

Shortcut with Target as

%windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -s -t 0

Then schedule that shortcut to load at specified time.

Or thats at least what i had in mind.

mk17 · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:15

... and take her out of the Administrators group on the pc

t31os · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:21

Works for some things, but certain aps and games require administrator level access.

furnace · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:37

Well there's me thinking I'm all clever with my program - and it turns out my app just logs you out rather than shut down the computer >.< haha. Well try it out, and if you like it but want it to shut down, just let me know and ill see if i can get it to shut down the computer when I get a bit more spare time.

Nonetheless, if you want it, then you can have it.

Weekdays:
On computer startup, will remind user that computer shuts down at 8pm.
At 8pm, or if the computer is turned on between 8-9pm, the program pops up a message saying 1 minute till shutdown.
1 Minute later, the computer logs out.
If the computer is turned on 9pm onwards, the program waits until 8pm (or 9pm) the next day before shutting down. But that shouldn't be an issue as she's not allowed to log in after then anyway..?

Weekends:
Same, but replace 8pm with 9pm

Just stick it in startup and it should be ok!

RAR: 4KB [Source Code]
EXE: 26KB [Binary / Executable]

If you dont trust me, download the source code

or get someone from the programming section to rip my code apart lol. In my defence, it was a quick app, I wasn't trying to make lovely tidy code

Oh yeah umm, should work fine, I recommend you test it first, I'll delete it off my server tomorrow night. Only tested under WinXP, and very briefly at that. Ctrl+Alt+Delete to close the program - look for ShutDown.exe under Applications or Processes. I haven't tested to see if it messes up at 8AM and 9AM. Although I have tried to make sure it won't do that!

AJUK · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:47

An 11 year old should not be allowed to use a computer unsupervised at all. However, give her the benefit of the doubt; get her parents to do their job and tell her that she cannot use it after the prescribed time otherwise it will be removed. Technology doesn't always have the answer.

stickroad · 3 Jan 2007 at 21:54

why do you have to have some smart way of getting her of the computer why cant you just take the power cord out?

Outsmarting an 11 year old

Man of Honour