worrying message

[papajuliet]

My desktopPC is cable connected. My laptop is wifi.
Occasionally when I close down my desktop I get a message "other people are logged onto this computer, logging off will cause them etc...." When this first happened I thought that it related to my laptop which was also on at that time. However it also happens [occasionally] when the laptop isn't even switched on.
Should I be worried? What causes it?
I'm with virginmedia and, apart from the difficulty of contacting them, I 'm reasonably satisfied with their service.

[mixture]

Do you have file or printer sharing enabled on your laptop ?

[Saab Dastard]

If you are using XP, right click "My Computer", then Manage. Open Shared Folders, then Sessions. Any other account connected should be in there.

You can also look at the processes in Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del) and see the name of the accounts associated with the processes.

I think the same is true in Vista / 7 but I haven't got those in front of me right now.

I think it's possible that you can get that message using fast user switching, if there's still another account open on the PC. I don't use it, so can't verify it.

Another possibility might be internet connection sharing, if you have that enabled, especially with unsecured wifi - possibly someone else has connected to your wifi network.

If your PC is behind a hardware firewall, it is unlikely that anyone else is connecting from outside, but not impossible. With a direct connection to the internet it is much more likely, unfortunately.

SD

[Mike-Bracknell]

I think it's possible that you can get that message using fast user switching, if there's still another account open on the PC. I don't use it, so can't verify it.
Yes, this is possible.
Another possibility might be internet connection sharing, if you have that enabled, especially with unsecured wifi - possibly someone else has connected to your wifi network.
No, this isn't possible (as ICS is just NAT and RRAS combined)

[BOAC]

papaj - do you have more than one user on your machine?

[green granite]

I get this in W7 if I've switched to 'run as administrator' to update some software, Super-anti-spyware insists it will only update if it's running in admin mode, so it remains in that mode until the PC is shut down

[Mr Optimistic]

if you are worried that someone else is hitching a ride on your wifi, the router will have a page which shows connected clients.

[papajuliet]

Thank you all for your responses. 1.file or printer sharing not enabled
2.shared folders - sessions..... shows no items on either machine
3.users, on the desktop PC, are shown as...... all users, myself [name] and default user

Having seen the replies I feel rather more at ease with the message.

[BOAC]

I-Tunes 'Bonjour' running?

[Booglebox]

Some extremely technical bits of Windows use user accounts with different privileges to run I think... do you have anything unusual installed? Are you fully up to date with SP3 and so on?