Logout or switch user in Windows using Python

Question

I want to write a small program that given a time (in minutes) as input, sleeps in the background for that time, and then forces a return to the "switch user screen" (equivalent to the Winkey+L combination) or logs off a user (may be another user logged in on the same machine).

What functions or libraries in Python could I use for this?

Edit:

• I prefer just a return to the "Switch User" screen rather than actually logging off
• Perhaps there's a simple Windows command to do this, which I could use
• I have Windows XP if that's relevant

Answer 1

Maybe you can use os.popen or subprocess to run windows command line for logout. I think logoff is the command. (According to this page)

Answer 2

I think you must use windows API, and run by python. use os.system('logoff'); (or logout, I forget) it is not tested, because I am using ubuntu now...

Answer 3

There seems to be a simple way of locking a computer using no Python libraries except for ctypes:

import ctypes
ctypes.windll.user32.LockWorkStation ()

Source: Tim Golden's Python Stuff