ctrl alt del does what?

[gopunk]

win2k help said that making the user hit ctrl-alt-del to log in made it safer. why is this?

 

[Greymalkin]

Who said this?!?!?!
Whilst i only have win 98SE, it is common knowlage that pressing ctrl alt del allows youu to manually shut down programs and to shut down your pc quckly if there are any crashes that lead to system instablity

 

[gopunk]

no, to log in to windows 2000. you know how it normally just has fields for you to enter in username and password? you can set it so that you have to hit ctrl-alt-del before entering this info.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< no, to log in to windows 2000. you know how it normally just has fields for you to enter in username and password? you can set it so that you have to hit ctrl-alt-del before entering this info. >>



That is how NT 4 is, but I have no clue why they set it up like that. It always seemed silly to me.

 

[tehs]

Its an extra security feature in Windows 2000. Some people can write a program that looks like the login screen for windows but what it really is, is a Keylogger that copies down every key you press, in effect, saving you username and password, so that the person can come back later and find out the username and password of anyone who has logged into the computer.

Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL at the login screen is a security measure against this. unless there are NO programs running and you are in fact at the actual login screen, pressing ctrl+alt+del will take you to the windows task manager, where you can then shutdown the keylogging program if one is running, or any other program that may be running. That way people cant steal your passwords and stuff. If there are no hidden programs running then it will take you to the actual login screen without bringing up the task manager.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Heh, a friend and I wrote one of those for OpenBSD. We also changed su to get the root password when the user tried to su to root

 

[juiio]

You can still write a program to steal the login information. You can write a replacement GINA.

 

[gopunk]

gina?

 

[Poof]

&quot;GUI-based Interface Network Authentication&quot;? heh Just a guess.

<CTL><ALT><DEL> has been around since the NT days for bringing up the task manager to either kill a 16-bit process or other out-of-control process, logout, or shutdown. With XP, you now have the choice to switch users too...

 

[HansXP]

<< Who said this?!?!?!
Whilst i only have win 98SE, it is common knowlage that pressing ctrl alt del allows youu to manually shut down programs and to shut down your pc quckly if there are any crashes that lead to system instablity >>



Man you are way off...

 

[juiio]

Close. Graphical Identification and Authentication dynamic-link library.

 

[noninterleaved]

I think the real reason why control-alt-delete is because this keystroke generates a message that windows WILL NOT PASS TO OTHER PROGRAMS, so it does get placed into the message queue of any other programs, hence only windows itself can respond to this message.

Otherwise, it would be simple to write a service to intercept the message and display a bogus login screen.

 

[bozo1]

Not many MCSE's around I guess as that used to be a question on the NT4 test. Ctrl-Alt-Del was put there for the simple reason that you can't pass that keystroke to a computer via software. It was required for NT to receive government approval as a 'secure' (C2 if I remember correctly) operating system that is required for use on certain government computers. (yea I know, no laughing here) Supposedly, a piece of software, virus, etc., is unable to pass that keystroke to gain control of the computer. Of course, pcAnywhere can but the gina has to be replaced which voids the security rating.