Making a script that will close my programs when my roommate logs on to his account.

Factual Questions
1

My roommate and I share a computer. He doesn’t use it nearly as much as I do, but when he does he often plays memory-intensive games, which slow down quite a bit if I happen to have an instance of my BitTorrent client running at the time. We have separate accounts in Windows XP. Is there anything I can do so that my BitTorrent client automagically closes when he logs on to his account?

(FWIW, this is my idea, not his–he’s not real good with computers and probably doesn’t have the faintest idea what any of the above means.)

Thanks!

2

If you go to Control Panel > Users > “Change the way users log on or off” you can uncheck the Use Fast User Switching option. When a user logs on to his account, this will cause all your programs to close automatically. It will take longer to switch users because of this, but it will do what I think you want it to.

3

That should read “User Accounts”, just to stave off any confusion.

4

But if I do this, can I use “Switch User” to log out and leave my programs running? I still need to be able to do that–I don’t want my roommate to see what’s on my BitTorrent download list, or find himself logged in to my email etc. Not that I don’t trust him, but he’s not good with computers and he could stumble upon something and cause havoc by clicking around confusedly.

5

Just to make sure all are on the same page, you want to be able to log out of your account and leave your programs running but have it set up so that when he then later logs into his account it will close anything you have running?

6

Gee, fetus, what kinda kink are you downloading?

You can set the priority of the BT client lower so it gives up resources to higher priority programs (I.E. his games)… This may not help as much as you like and will degrade the BT client’s performance so long as you have it in effect.

You could teach your roommate how to kill processes and he can kill them himself after he logs on. May not be the best option for someone “not good with computers”.

I have no idea if the windows version of teatimer is able to do it, but you may be able to set it to perform certain actions when it detects a given event (I.E. stop BT when he logs on… restart BT when he logs off).

7

You could go to scriptlance.com and hire someone to write something for you if all the options in this thread mention don’t work for you.

8

Tell him to get his own computer and lock him out of yours.

This whole situation is a disaster waiting to happen.

Can you really afford the things that can go wrong here?

Does he contribute to repair when the computer crashes? Compensate you when you are off line because of his screw-ups?

I give old computers away. He can buy a Win-98se full system ( monitor and all ) at the junk computer store for $50. Not good nuff, his problem.

YMMV

9

It is his computer. He’s the one being generous and trusting.

10

If you both have admin accounts, simply locking the computer will suffice.
You lock it, he comes by, unlocks it, it kills your login’s apps and presents his login with Windows.

11

How about having him restart the computer when he wants to use it?