XP: Limit Login Access to Specific Times and Days

Contributed by AlexTheBeast  
Tagged: Windows security  

By using this technique you can limit when your children or employees are able to use a system.

I have used this multiple times. Two examples…

My children have personal accounts on our home box and log-in to the internet from these accounts. Using this technique I can make sure that they can only log-in during certain times of the day (as in when I can supervise them.)

Several computers at my office had been getting crazy stuff installed on them at night. Some employees were staying all night surfing and absorbing bandwidth. This technique limits their use to more appropriate hours.

Here are the steps to activate limitations:

1. Click on the Start Menu
2. Click Run
3. Type CMD in the Open textbox and click OK
4. In the command window type:

net user accountname /times:M-F,8am-8pm; Sa,8am-5pm;Su,8am-1pm

Replace accountname with the name of the account you wish to limit. The time command is a bit tricky, but the above example is easy to replace with the appropriate values. Here’s microsoft’s further information regarding the format of the time command:

Specifies the times that users are allowed to use the computer. Time is limited to 1-hour increments. For the day values, you can spell out or use abbreviations (that is, M,T,W,Th,F,Sa,Su). You can use 12-hour or 24-hour notation for hours. If you use 12-hour notation, use AM and PM, or A.M. and P.M. The value all means a user can always log on. A null value (blank) means a user can never log on. Separate day and time with commas, and units of day and time with semicolons (for example, M,4AM-5PM;T,1PM-3PM). Do not use spaces when designating times.

Here are the steps to turn off limitations:
1. Click on the Start Menu
2. Click Run
3. Type CMD in the Open textbox and click OK
4. In the command window type:

net user accountname /times:all

Once again, replace accountname with the name of the account you wish to change.