Sending Ctrl-Alt-Del / Simulate SAS in Windows Vista

RW Remko Weijnen· Mar 30, 2009 ·3 min read

Existing code to simulate the Secure Attention Sequence (SAS),which most people refer to as control alt delete or ctrl-alt-del, no longer works in Windows Vista. It seems that Microsoft offers a library that exports a function called SimulateSAS(). It is not public and one is supposed to request it by sending a mail to saslib@microsoft.com. Mails to this address remain unanswered though.

I researched how other people (including Microsoft) have solved this task and was unhappy with the results: some solutions work only with (or without) UAC, most solutions work only for the current or console Terminal Server sessions or need a kernel mode driver.

So I decided to create my own Saslib with the following goals:

Should work both with and without User Account Control (UAC)
Should support current, console and any Terminal Server session
Does not need a driver
The calling application does not need to be signed or have a special manifest
Support multiple programming languages

I have succeeded and thus SasLibEx was born: not only can it successfully simulate the SAS sequence it can do this for any/all Terminal Server sessions. It can also lock the workstation (again for all sessions) and switch between the normal desktop and the secure desktop (the desktop that UAC runs on). SasLibEx was successfully tested both with and without User Account Control (UAC).

In the future I will place SasLibEx on it’s own website. Meanwhile you can contact me if you are interested in it at the following mail address:

Please note that I have spend lots of time into this project and therefore I cannot give it away for free

Update: I have added new features to SasLibEx, see here: /2009/04/07/saslibex-updates/

> written by

Remko Weijnen

I work on Windows internals, application delivery, security, reverse engineering, automation and AI — building tools, debugging strange behaviour and taking systems apart to understand how they work.

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6 Comments

Ross Apr 1, 2009
Excellent work Remko, Microsoft so send it eventually but took them two months to send ours. Turns out the package contains a MS compiled C .lib, extracting the .obj and linking to Delphi would have been bum.
SasLibEx updates | RemkoWeijnen.nl Apr 7, 2009
[...] I have found and tested some new functionalities which I will add to SasLibEx: [...]
John May 7, 2009
I made a donation to you and would like to use your SasLibEx.
PK Aug 20, 2009
Just wondering what sort of donation is acceptable or whether there's a set price or antyhing. Thinking of following in Johns footsteps and attempting to build UltraVNC with SasLibEx to get around the C-A-D issues.
Jemota Aug 25, 2009
Hello friend! I made a little donation too and would like to receive your SasLibEx. Thank you very much.
Jemota Aug 26, 2009
Hello Remko. How long does it take to receive the SasLibEx after making the donation? Thank you.

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Sending Ctrl-Alt-Del / Simulate SAS in Windows Vista

6 Comments