Hello! I want to relearn ASM-programming... i loved it back in the OS/290 days! Today i'm using a WinXP(32)-Machine and want to code the following:

Every time a user logs in or off, some infos about this get written to the database|logfile.

I tried to find some infos on how to do this and first thought about a Windows-Hook, but this seems to be not an efficient way, since i don't want to intercept with other programs etc. My next thought was to create an autostart-entry, and every time the user logs in, a tiny program gets started.

But how can i monitor if a user logs off? I found the ExitWindows API-Call, but have no clue how to make sort of a "watchdog"-program, waiting for this call. Is there a way in windows to autostart programs when the user logs off?

Thanks for the help in advance!

if you leave the program running when the user logs in, you can process
the WM_QUERYENDSESSION and WM_ENDSESSION messages.

they inform you when a logoff/restart etc is about to take place.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/shutdown/base/wm_endsession.asp

why not the hook?

Ahh. Great, thank you wisepenguin!

About the hook: i read in Icezelion's Win32 Hook tutorial about the several types of hooks and understood it so, that hooks only make sense when you want to trap events in other applications. Now, after reading the tut a second time, i think i was wrong, hehe... So you would suggest a hook? I think for my purpose this maybe would not make much sense, since at logon i autostart a program which, at logoff, receives the WM_QUERYENDSESSION call to shutdown... There are no other events i need...?

After reading the help about WM_QUERYENDSESSION, i think it works this way (please correct me): Windows sends WM_QUERYENDSESSION to all programs. If mine and all others return 0, then Windows checks the results and returns WM_ENDSESSION to all programs to let them know if Windows is shutting down?