The previous installment if this article looked at two technologies included with Windows XP: Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance. You also learned how to enable Remote Desktop on a local and remote computer. In this installment, I will show you some of the tips you can use when remotely administering a computer.

Lock a Computer Remotely
If you are physically seated at a computer, you can easily lock it by pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and selecting the Lock Workstation option. Alternatively you can also press the Windows Logo and “L.”

However, for those of you who use the remote administrator feature of Windows XP, you will soon discover that you can not lock the workstation using either of these methods (for the obvious reasons of course). What you can do though is create a shortcut on the remote desktop. When you double click the shortcut, the remote computer will automatically be locked.

Here is what you have to do. Right click on the remote desktop, point to New and click Shortcut. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, type in the following:

c:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

Click Next. Type in a name for the shortcut, such as Lock Workstation and click Finish. Now when you double click the shortcut, the remote computer will then go into a locked state.

Shut Down Windows Remotely
There are a few different ways that you can shut down a computer. You can use the Shut Down option from the Start Menu. Conversely, you can choose the Shut Down option from the Windows Security dialog box.

If you frequently use remote administration in Windows XP to manage remote computers, another shutdown alternative is to create shortcuts on the remote desktops. You can then use the shortcut to shut down Windows XP remotely.

Once you are connected to the remote Windows XP computer, you need to create a new shortcut using the procedure outlined in the previous section. When you create the shortcut, type in shutdown -r. This will shut down and restart Windows. By default, a dialog box will appear indicating that the computer will be shut down in 30 seconds. You can change the wait time by including -t followed by the number of seconds to wait. For example, shutdown -r -t 02.

[tags]xp,remote administration,remote assistance,lock workstation,-t[/tags]