Stop locking me out!

October 22, 2008 11:23 PM

How can I keep PointSec from switching my screen saver preference?

My company's IT recently installed the PointSec software package on my laptop. This is security software that is primarily designed to encrypt your hard drive. One of the secondary features it has is to make your screen saver password protected. Is there any way to turn this feature off?

Now, I know that this program by its nature is difficult to modify or remove without administrator passwords. I'm not interested in incurring the wrath of my IT department by trying to do so. However, I can temporarily turn off the password feature by going into the Display Properties dialog and unchecking the 'On resume, password protect' box. So, clearly, this particular aspect can be somewhat modified. It's just that every time I reboot, the box is again checked. I'd prefer to not have to undo that with every reboot. Is there any possible way to do so, by monkeying with the registry or something?

FWIW:
HP Compaq 6515b
Windows XP SP3
PointSec PC 6.3.1

posted by anonymous to computers & internet (4 comments total)

I don't know the workings of PointSec but you can set up a shortcut so that you can turn off (or on) the password (or the screen saver all together) with a single click on a quick launch icon.

See this about.com article. Replace ScreenSaveActive with ScreenSaverIsSecure to toggle the password requirement rather than the screen saver function.
posted by Mitheral at 11:52 PM on October 22, 2008

Pointsec is meant to secure the data on the PC against unauthorized access. To have the PC not lock when you are away from it would defeat its purpose completely. Anyone who picked up the PC while you were away from it would have full access.

Disabling this feature most likely would incure the wrath of your IT department when they found out.
posted by splice at 7:05 AM on October 23, 2008

To have the PC not lock when you are away from it would defeat its purpose completely.

That's not really true, though. It's still encrypted if the user intentionally locks it, or shuts down. And just turning off the screen saver entirely would also make this feature go away.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:07 AM on October 23, 2008

...and if you can make a shortcut, you can stick the shortcut in Startup to make it autorun on reboot. But seconding what splice said, there's a reason they password-protect the screen saver!
posted by katrielalex at 8:38 AM on October 23, 2008