Syslock Review: Cleaning the system while it’s on!

Syslock Review: Cleaning the system while it’s on!

Do you ever need to quickly clean your keyboard or mouse while the PC’s still running? Here’s a great way to do this without shutting down your PC or playing a bizarre digital version of Russian roulette, risking the possibility of something crazy happening coz you pressed the wrong keys at the wrong time. 

Syslock is a small freeware utility which, when run, locks your PC screen and displays a password prompt. All key presses and mouse clicks will then only apply to the password prompt, enabling you to safely clean your keyboard and mouse without worrying about your running apps being issued random commands. It even disables the ALT-TAB and CTRL-ALT-DEL combinations.

Syslock also has a great alternative use. If you make it run on startup by creating a shortcut in your Startup folder, you can power on the PC and walk away to do something else without worrying about a casual user gaining access to your files in your absence. You may say that the standard Windows login screen affords you the same protection but there’s a difference… if you have a few programs starting up everytime you logon (and most people do) these programs will only start after you log in successfully at the Windows user login screen. So with the standard Windows login, once you return to the PC and enter your password you have to wait till everything starts up and the PC is usable. Not so with Syslock, which lets all your programs start in the background even while it keeps the PC locked. Your file indexing, downloads, virus signature updates and other startup tasks will all start on cue so when you return to your PC, it’ll be ready to go! If you’re the only person using the PC you may consider disabling the standard Windows login screen completely and letting Syslock take over. 

Note: The program is freeware but needs to be registered the first time it is run on a computer – this process involves clicking on ‘Next’ twice. There’s no personal information collected, it just gives the developers an indication of how many people are using their software.

Download Syslock [85 Kb]

Digistrom is a blog dedicated to smart Windows apps for the discerning user.