You can use this page to set up the schedule of the allowed hours for your computer and to specify actions that should be taken when the allowed hours end.

This page contains the following areas:

• This computer can be used only during allowed hours

  Check this box to make ActiveExit track the allowed hours schedule and prevent the use of your computer when the allowed hours end. If you clear this box, then ActiveExit will not use the schedule and will not limit the use of the computer.

  The schedule is initially set up so that there are no denied hours of operation. To define the denied hours, select the appropriate region of the schedule with the mouse, and press the Set the selected range to: Deny check box below the schedule. To allow the use of the computer during certain times, select the appropriate range of hours with the mouse and press the Set the selected range to: Allow check box below the schedule. The granularity of the schedule is 30 minutes.

• During the denied hours

  Use this area to specify actions that ActiveExit should perform during the denied hours:

  • If a user attempts to log on

    Select the desired action that ActiveExit should take when a user attempts to log on to Windows during the denied hours.

  • If a user is logged on

    Select the desired action that ActiveExit should take when there is a user logged on to Windows and the allowed hours of operation have ended. To allow the user time to finish his or her work and save documents, you may want to select the Display a message option. To customize the message displayed to the user, click on the button next to the option. Be sure to hide or protect with a password the Cancel and Pause buttons of the message, otherwise the user will be able to cancel the action and continue to work with the computer!

  • Force application termination

    If this option is selected, ActiveExit will end the Windows session when the allowed hours end even if the user has open documents that have not been saved onto the disk. This may cause the loss of changes the user might have made to the documents s/he was working with! If this option is not selected, and there are documents with pending changes, ActiveExit will prompt the user to save them before ending the Windows session. Note that if you disable this option, the user may continue working with the computer by keeping an open document not saved. To avoid this, you may want to enable this option, and also enable the Display message option with a timeout to give the user enough time to save his or her documents.

  • If the computer is locked

    Select the desired action that ActiveExit should take when there is a user logged on to Windows and the allowed hours of operation have ended, but the computer is locked by the user. Note that the Logoff action is not available, because Windows currently does not provide a way to logoff a user automatically if the computer is locked. You can specify the Restart or Shut Down actions instead. Note that such actions will be performed even if the user has unsaved changes to the documents s/he was working with, just like the Force application termination option described above. This may cause the loss of changes the user might have made to the documents s/he was working with!. To allow the user time to finish his or her work and save documents, you may want to select the Display a message option. To customize the message displayed to the user, click on the button next to the option. Be sure to hide or protect with a password the Cancel and Pause buttons of the message, otherwise the user will be able to cancel the action and continue to work with the computer!

• Don't allow the use of the Date and Time command of Windows

  If you check this option, ActiveExit will prevent the user from opening the Date and Time window of Windows Control Panel. It will make the user unable to use this command to change the system time of the computer and trick ActiveExit into prolonging the allowed hours. Note that this option does not prevent other methods of changing the system time, it only prevents the use of the Date and Time command of Windows Control Panel.

Notes

When configuring ActiveExit to deny the use of the computer during certain hours, you should be careful not to lock yourself out of the computer! One way to allow yourself to bypass the denied hours restrictions is to enable the appropriate Display a message options (see above), and then configure the messages so that their Cancel (and, possibly, Pause) buttons would be protected with the User's Password that only you should know. This way, when ActiveExit displays a message before forcing Windows to exit, you would be able to cancel the action and return to Windows, while users who don't know the password would not be able to do that.