Adding keystrokes - Slide show via macro

Hi!

My office computers are all WinXP SP2 under corporate group policies
applied by the technology department. There is a criteria that if the
computer is idle for 5 minutes, it gets locked and you get the windows
logon streen asking you to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to login.

There is no way we can override this as it is a group policy but one
way accomplish this that I thought of is to send keystrokes so that the
computer will never be idle.

What I want to do is, whenever I move off my computer, I will run a
macro within the powerpoint file. This macro should start a slide show.
This macro will have keystrokes, after 5 seconds, the macro should send
a keystroke that will move the current slide to next slide and the
computer will also be in activity state becuase of which the computer
will never be locked. If it reaches the last slide, it should
automatically go the first slide and be in continuous loop.

Now comes the security issue, anybody can cancel the slideshow and work
on my PC. I don't even want that. This can be resolved only by having a
password. If anybody attempts to touch the keyboard keys or click the
mouse button, the macro should assume that its time to quit the slide
show and ask for a password before quitting.

Is it a big ask? Is this possible? If yes, can anyone guide me?

Thanks
Maxi

I don't believe it will work. Windows knows the difference between
"SendKeys" and an actual keystroke or mouse movement.


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

PowerPoint Video and PowerPoint Sound Solutions www.pfcmedia.com



"Maxi" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi!

My office computers are all WinXP SP2 under corporate group policies
applied by the technology department. There is a criteria that if the
computer is idle for 5 minutes, it gets locked and you get the windows
logon streen asking you to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to login.

There is no way we can override this as it is a group policy but one
way accomplish this that I thought of is to send keystrokes so that the
computer will never be idle.

What I want to do is, whenever I move off my computer, I will run a
macro within the powerpoint file. This macro should start a slide show.
This macro will have keystrokes, after 5 seconds, the macro should send
a keystroke that will move the current slide to next slide and the
computer will also be in activity state becuase of which the computer
will never be locked. If it reaches the last slide, it should
automatically go the first slide and be in continuous loop.

Now comes the security issue, anybody can cancel the slideshow and work
on my PC. I don't even want that. This can be resolved only by having a
password. If anybody attempts to touch the keyboard keys or click the
mouse button, the macro should assume that its time to quit the slide
show and ask for a password before quitting.

Is it a big ask? Is this possible? If yes, can anyone guide me?

Thanks
Maxi

Wouldn't this work with just an advance show on timings and loop until
Esc?
I've done this on a network, running IE to SQL Server with a simple
Ping Server routine that ping my server every 5 seconds to keep the
network alive since a period of inactivity would make the client go
look for the Server and take longer than if it remembered who the
server was.

Brian Reilly, MVP

On 7 Nov 2005 08:02:52 -0800, "Maxi" wrote:

Hi!

My office computers are all WinXP SP2 under corporate group policies
applied by the technology department. There is a criteria that if the
computer is idle for 5 minutes, it gets locked and you get the windows
logon streen asking you to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to login.

There is no way we can override this as it is a group policy but one
way accomplish this that I thought of is to send keystrokes so that the
computer will never be idle.

What I want to do is, whenever I move off my computer, I will run a
macro within the powerpoint file. This macro should start a slide show.
This macro will have keystrokes, after 5 seconds, the macro should send
a keystroke that will move the current slide to next slide and the
computer will also be in activity state becuase of which the computer
will never be locked. If it reaches the last slide, it should
automatically go the first slide and be in continuous loop.

Now comes the security issue, anybody can cancel the slideshow and work
on my PC. I don't even want that. This can be resolved only by having a
password. If anybody attempts to touch the keyboard keys or click the
mouse button, the macro should assume that its time to quit the slide
show and ask for a password before quitting.

Is it a big ask? Is this possible? If yes, can anyone guide me?

Thanks
Maxi

You mean within the .pps file, you want to add a VBA code that would
tell the .pps file to go and ping the server? If so, can you give me
the syntax or if possible the vba code?

Also can I have the.pps file to prompt for a password if any key on the
keyboard is pressed?