Like many people I’m a Windows user not because I have any particular love for Microsoft’s OS, but rather because it is the best OS overall for what I need to do on a day-to-day basis. Given the resources Microsoft has to throw at Windows development, however, it is amazing how much you can’t do in Windows.
For example, here’s a pretty straightforward thing I’d like to do in Windows — I’d like to set it up so that when I close the lid on my laptop, Windows automatically locks itself. Based on a couple Google searches a lot of people would like to be able to do this.
And yet, as of 2012, there is no version of Windows in which this can be done. Microsoft will let you put a laptop to sleep automatically when you close the lid, and you can always hit the Windows key+L to lock the computer, but there’s no way to configure Windows to lock automatically when the laptop lid is closed.
That, my friends, is f***ing stupid. I did find a couple of people who had created programs that intercepted the lid state and would automatically lock the lid when closed, but none of these were currently available (the website of the most popular utility for doing this was hijacked by hackers a couple years ago and is still compromised).
So if you know of a decent utility for automatically locking a Windows laptop when the lid closes, I’d be glad to hear it. Or maybe Microsoft could actually follow up on a simple, obvious feature that many of its users have requested. Just don’t hold your breath on that.
