How to remove password protected screensaver?

fmueller

My wife runs a research group at a university, and has problems with a computer that controls a scientific instrument. Her department has hired a student to look after computers, and the guy is obsessed with security. Yesterday while performing some routine maintenance, he also went ahead and password protected the screensaver on the machine. That wouldn't be so bad, but every time the screensaver comes on, it stops the measurement on a million dollar instrument, so the measurement only ever runs for 15min, but would need more than a day to complete!

I went to control panel/display/screensaver to disable the password protection, but unfortunately I don't seem to be able to do that, although my wife has admin privileges on the computer. I am sure the dude will eventually come back and remove this silly business, but in the meantime my wife can't use the instrument. Does anybody know how I can take this off real quick?

Kwitko

I'm fairly positive that the screensaver password is tied to the user ID, so your wife should be able to reset his password, very simple in an Active Directory environment.

EDIT: Well I was wrong, but a Google search brings up this:
http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/1130/

fmueller

Thanks, Kwitko, for the quick reply. I'll check that out and see what it does. The task at hand here, however, is to remove password protection from the screensaver, not to change the password. I have the current password for the screensaver, and can easily unlock the computer, but whenever the password protected screensaver comes on, it will crash the scientific instrument that's controlled by the computer.

MachineDog

fmueller wrote:

Thanks, Kwitko, for the quick reply. I'll check that out and see what it does. The task at hand here, however, is to remove password protection from the screensaver, not to change the password. I have the current password for the screensaver, and can easily unlock the computer, but whenever the password protected screensaver comes on, it will crash the scientific instrument that's controlled by the computer.

If they're using AD and she's not a domain administrator then she can't do much about it. She needs to talk to this student and get him to disable that for her.

Find a program that moves the mouse a tiny bit every few seconds?

the_technocrat

If a student did it, they probably used the Windows interface, or more likely if they are as crazy about security as you think, adjusted the local group policy.

# Click Start, and then click Run.
# In the Open box, type mmc, and then click OK.
# If the student is using local GPO's, you'll have a 'Local Computer Policy' option listed.
# Check the entries in User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Display and change as necessary

Cyclonite

the_technocrat wrote:

If a student did it, they probably used the Windows interface, or more likely if they are as crazy about security as you think, adjusted the local group policy.

# Click Start, and then click Run.
# In the Open box, type mmc, and then click OK.
# If the student is using local GPO's, you'll have a 'Local Computer Policy' option listed.
# Check the entries in User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Display and change as necessary

If it doesn't hold, then he's using a domain GPO. Like MGK, you won't be able to do anything about it until his return.