Here is a simple but effective security measure you can activate that will prevent people from ‘guessing’ your password to open up your PC. You can set Vista so that if someone attempts to enter your password more than a set amount the PC will shutdown for a certain amount of time.

Hopefully by activating this it will annoy any potential ‘other’ user so much that they will just give up on trying to access your computer. To set up the Vista lockout policy just do this;

  • Click start then all programs
  • Click administrative tools
    • If administrative tools is not there you can add it by right clicking on your start button, click properties, click customize on the start menu tab and activating it.
  • Select local security policy
  • Select account policies
  • Select account lockout policy

Now you will have three options in the right column to select and change the settings;

  • Account lockout duration - You can set the amount of time your PC will lockout after unsuccessful password attempts
  • Account lockout threshold - Here you set the number of times you can try the password until your PC lockouts (I suggest 3-4)
  • Reset account lockout counter - Here you can reset your account lockout counter after a set number of minutes
Account Lockout Policy