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Add “Lock Workstation” Command to the Windows XP Start Menu

October 7th, 2008 • Filed Under • by Ramesh Srinivasan

To lock a Windows 2000/XP/Vista workstation, most people use the popular WinKey + L keystroke. Whereas some (mouse users) prefer a shortcut which locks the workstation using the "rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation" command. Using the registry hack in this article, you can add the Lock Workstation command to the Windows XP Start menu, just below the Run command.

This hack uses the slot which is reserved for PC manufacturers to add their link. Here is the registry location for Start menu OEM Link:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}

(REF: How To Remove OEM link from the Windows XP Start menu?)

Add "Lock Workstation" to Windows XP Start menu

Download add_lock_startmenu_xp.zip and save to Desktop. Unzip the file and double-click add-lock-startmenu-xp.reg to run it. Logoff and login back to your user account. You should see the Lock Workstation command in the Start menu, which runs the following command when clicked:

rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

Note that Windows Vista includes the Lock button in Start menu by default.


Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan. All rights reserved.

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2 Responses to “Add “Lock Workstation” Command to the Windows XP Start Menu”

  1. 2
    Nikhil Says:
    December 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    Thanks for this lovely info. I managed to add “Hibernate” command to the Windows XP Start Menu using this same logic with some twist.

    Thank you.

  2. 1
    Add Enhanced Shutdown Button to the Windows XP Start Menu - The Winhelponline Blog Says:
    October 9th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    [...] saw how to add the Lock Workstation command to the Start menu using the OEM link area in the Windows XP Start menu. Here is another [...]

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