Patent ID: 8024781

Claim:
A method for signing-in to a software application, wherein the software application has one or more secured features, comprising: enabling, on a client computer, an automatic sign-in condition in the software application to allow the software application to automatically transition to a signed-in state when one or more security criteria are satisfied, the automatic sign-in condition being enabled upon at least one of initial system setup of the client computer and through a service options menu on the client computer, the service options menu comprising an interface displaying a field for a user name, a field for an option to save a password and a field for an auto-sign in option; starting the software application without prompting action on the part of a user when in the automatic sign-in condition; detecting whether one or more security criteria are satisfied when the software application is started and is in the automatic sign-in condition; and in response to at least one of the one or more security criteria being satisfied, automatically transitioning the software application to the signed-in state without prompting action on the part of the user when in the automatic sign-in condition and granting the software application access to the secured features, wherein the security criteria comprises a key, associated with a user profile, being set to enable the automatic sign-in condition and a credential associated with the user being stored in a credential manager, the key being associated with the user profile to provide roaming characteristics utilized to allow the user to access secured features from a plurality of network client computers, the roaming characteristics enabling the automatic sign-in condition to roam between the plurality of network client computers without the user being required to reenter the credential to access the secured features of the software application.