This email applies only to users who log onto our Sun/Solaris machines  directly (i.e., not remotely), particularly to students.  The window manager  (CDE for Common Desktop Environment) is set up so that the screen lock  comes on automatically after some period of inactivity (15 minutes,  I think).  This is a problem for two reasons.    1) It is often necessary to log in as root on the console (i.e.,  sitting at the machine) in order to do simple network administration.  This is necessary when, for some reason deliberate or not, remote  login has been disabled.  If you have the screen lock on, then  our only recourse (aside from waiting until you show up) is to  force a reboot of the system.  This is somewhat violent to the  filesystem, and kills all of your processes abruptly.  This  happened to several of you over the weekend.    2) (Students) Since we share computers, if you leave with the  machine in locked mode, YOU ARE PROBABLY BEING A COMPUTER HOG.  In our office, we have an understanding that anyone can log anyone  else out, unless there is a sticky note on the monitor asking  not to be logged out.  The only time that I use the screen lock  is when I'm logged in as root.  You should work out some type of  agreement in your respective offices.  Remember, the computer on or  near your desk is not YOUR computer.  The computers in your office  are corporately all of our computers.    My guess is that most of you do not realize that the timeout screenlock  is the default.  In order to change this (assuming that you are using CDE instead of Openwindows),    1) Click on the control bar button that has a color palette and a mouse.  (The control bar is the wide bar usually at the bottom of the screen that  has the buttons for switching between screen tiles.  It also has the mailbox.)    2) click on screen.    3) set screen lock to off    Notice that you will still be able to manually lock the screen by clicking on the small lock icon on the control bar.    BTW, if you don't like to wait for the screen to warm up after a period  of inactivity, in the same window, set StartSaver to less than five minutes, and choose  screen savers that have activity (i.e., anything other than blank screen).  (Also, make sure that the screen saver is set to on.)  If you don't know  what I'm talking about, ignore this.