Determine if BIOS is password-protected from within Windows?

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

Is it possible to determine if a BIOS password is present from within Windows 2000/XP? I don't need to know the password. I'd just like to be able to determine if a BIOS password exists without having to reboot and try to enter the BIOS manually.

If this is possible, is there a utility that already exists which would provide this information or would I need to develop it from scratch?

Thanks very much!

I'm not sure about how to go about this although I am sure that what you would like to be able to do is possible.

My best guess would be to somehow query the BIOS or attempt to enter it from within Windows, and see if you can get back some kind of error code based on the presence of a password - but how to do this - I am just as clueless as you are at present.