How to find out who is logged into your Windows PC and when: - We all need our privacy so we are eager to know if anyone is trying to intrude on our private space. So wouldn't it be great if we could see who logged into our PC and when? Enabling access control in the professional version of Windows provides this functionality. Both local and network access can be traced using access control. Each logon event specifies the logged in user, logon time, and logout time. Only the Professional edition of Windows supports this feature. This should work on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and even 10, although the screen can be slightly tweaked. We can also enable access control on the domain controller if we manage a network with centralized access.
Read also: How to limit a specific user's PC usage time in Windows 10
Enabling access control
- In the search panel type gpedit.msc and press Enter. The Local Group Policy Editor window opens.
2. Select Local Computer Policy-> Windows Settings-> Security Settings-> Local Policies-> Audit Policy and double-click Check for logon events.
3. In the properties window, check the success box to log successful logins and the error box to log failed logon attempts. Click OK.
Now all your logins will be checked.
View recorded events
Now let's see how to view audited access events.
1.From the search panel, open the event viewer.
2. Go to Windows Logs-> Security. More events will now be displayed and each event will have an associated event ID. These events with event ID-4624 represent successful logon events.
To view more information about the event, simply double-click on that particular event. Then we can see all the information, such as the user account that is logged in, within a text box.
The log can contain many events. Then we can conveniently filter the log to see the logon events using the Filter current log option.
Select the current log filter option and filter by event ID 4624. Then only logon events will be displayed.
So, we can see who logged into our system and when. All logon events will be logged.
