How to unlock computer

Help,

When I tried to change users on laptop I got the message 'computer locked can only be unlocked by user or Administrator*. Very strange, we didn't lock the computer and when I right clicked got a blank screen, save for the windows log. What have we done wrong and can we correct it.

Thanks for any help.

Justsally

The last user logged in might have enabled the screensaver lock. Do you get an option to shutdown/restart? If not and you don't have the user/admin password then the only option might be to power off and on. Not generally recommended but unless there is something running that might lose data through doing this you should be OK.

Hi Clubman,

Apparently the last user hadn't logged off properly - so we took your advice, powered off and on again and hey presto it's sorted.

Thanks again.


Justsally

Was the user not around to enter his/her password to unlock it?

That was the problem, it hadn't been manually or intentionally locked. So by powering off and powering on again, by holding down start up button for a short time, the difficulty was resolved. We have never installed passwords on the computer, as it's for family and not business use.

Cheers