Question

I would like to know the current idle time from user input on a given Windows XP machine programmatically. I am using VBA in MS Access. What options do I have?

Answer 1

I used the following to obtain the solution.

Private Declare Function GetTickCount Lib "kernel32" () As Long
Private Declare Function GetLastInputInfo Lib "user32" (plii As Any) As Long

Private Type LastInputInformation

    cbSize As Long

    dwTime As Long

End Type

Public Function GetUsersIdleTime() As Long

    Dim lii As LastInputInformation

    lii.cbSize = Len(lii)

    Call GetLastInputInfo(lii)

    GetUsersIdleTime = FormatNumber((GetTickCount() - lii.dwTime) / 1000, 2)

End Function

There are other parts of the system which can be idle such as,

• CPU
• Disk
• Network
• Other devices

To find out more regarding performance and other idle types see this SO post here.