asked on

Detect user inactivity

Detect user inactivity

I need to make a consol application thats run a aplication if user is inactiv.
How sholde I scan for inactivity in windows.

Is it possible to hav it use same function as this if user is inactive for some time.
Exempel: Inactivity.exe -20
After 20 sec ut lock down the workstation.

%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll LockWorkStation

Peter_

I used this trick sometime back when needing to know if the user had been inactive.

Set the windows screensaver timeout (Screen properties/ screen saver/ wait ? minutes) to the requested value. This can also be done using code.

When user has been inactive for this amount of time, the SC_SCREENSAVE message is sent systemwide (once every 30 seconds or so, until user is no longer inactive). The good thing is that this happens regardless of if a sceensaver has actually been choosen or not (in screen properties/ screen saver). So even if a screensaver has not been started, this indicates that it should have been if selected.

I had an application always running that looked for this message. I also added a timer as to do the action just once (not every time the message is caught).

procedure TForm1.ResetInactive(var Msg: TMsg; var Handled: boolean);
begin
if (Msg.message = WM_SYSCOMMAND) then
begin
if (Msg.wParam = SC_SCREENSAVE) then
begin
if (not SystemInactive) then
begin
// Do something... User is inactive!
IdleTimer.Enabled:=True;
end;
SystemInactive:=True;
FLastActive := Now;
end;

procedure TForm1.IdleTimerTimer(Sender: TObject);
begin
if ((FLastActive + EncodeTime( 0, 0, 30, 0 )) < Now) then
begin
SystemInactive:=False;
IdleTimer.Enabled:=False;
end;
end;

This worked great using windows 2000.

snehanshu

Dark_King,
Here's a comment I had posted recently: essentially, I hooked into keyboard and mouse events and monitored how long thy were inactive.
You could use a journal record hook in your application, reset the timer on any keyboard or mouse event and set the timerinterval to whatever parameter you receive.
In the ontimer, you could write the code to do whatever you want. I hope this makes some sense.

Cheers!
...Shu
Here's my comment from another question:
(https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20807081/After-an-idle-period-shutdown-a-windows-machine-as-NT-service.html)
I am working on a utility that monitoris the Idle time of the PC. The way I am doing it is to hook to keyboard and mouse events to find out how long the system was idle (using a service). I check it periodically (using a timer) and save the idle time.
If that helps, read on...
I have asked a few questions at EE for doing that and you could have a look at those. There are two ways you could do it:
1) Using Journal hooks
2) Using individual Keyboard/mouse hooks
When I asked here, I was recommended that for longer periods of time, non-journal hooks are better. But perhaps journal hooks are simple. So, you could decide on what you want.

Links:
My journal hook service code is posted in this Q:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20794138/Does-JournalRecord-hook-from-service-require-Allow-service-to-interact-With-Desktop.html

This is where I got the code for a DLL that creates Kbd hooks (non-journal):
http://www.swissdelphicenter.ch/torry/showcode.php?id=1722

This is for using the DLL described above from the service:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20750612/Security-Attributes-in-CreateFileMapping.html

And this is the debate of what to use journal or other hook:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20750833/Difference-between-JournalRecord-and-Other-hooks.html

I am asking you to chase a lot of links, but doing that gave me a better understanding of what I wanted. hope it works the same way for you too.
Cheers,
...Snehanshu