Windows 10 - How to disable password prompt after screen blank

Question

We have a set of Windows 10 (2004) domain PCs setup for shared use with autologon as a limited domain user. They automatically reboot nightly.

We want the screen to blank after a period of time (via Power & sleep > Screen: When plugged in, turn off after [x] minutes) but NOT require password entry after blanking - in other words, the way Windows 7 screen blanking worked.

Sleep is disabled, so this and the related sleep settings aren't applicable.

We've disabled the Windows 10 Lock Screen - after the screen blanks pressing a key or button goes directly to the password entry screen. But we want it to go directly back to the session as it was when the screen blanked, without requiring a password. (Again, as Windows 7 worked.)

We've tried many suggested options to avoid the password entry (via GPO where possible):

• Per-user: Screen saver enabled with 86400 seconds timeout, but set to not prompt for password on resume
• Per-user: Screen saver disabled
• Per-computer: Interactive Logon: Machine Inactivity Limit set to 0 seconds
• Per-computer: Interactive Logon: Machine Inactivity Limit set to 86400 seconds.
• Setting the ScreenSaverGracePeriod registry value to 86400 seconds

But in all cases after the screen is blanked Windows always prompts for the password.

Presumably we could disable screen blanking and there would be no password prompt. But we want the screen to blank after a relatively short time of inactivity.

Has anyone found a way to accomplish this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hello @JWit13 ,

Thank you for your question.

Please Follow these steps :

Open Settings app by clicking its icon in Start menu or pressing Windows logo + I keyboard shortcut.

Click on Accounts.

Click Sign-in options in the left hand side, and then select Never for the “Require sign-in” option if you want to stop Windows 10 from asking for password after it wakes up from sleep.

If the reply was helpful,please don't forget to upvote or accept as answer.

Thanks,

Aradhya C

Answer 2

Hi JWit13-7723 ,

See if one or more of these tutorials is useful:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3539-sign-user-account-automatically-windows-10-startup.html
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/14776-remove-password-local-account-windows-10-a.html
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/49827-turn-off-password-protected-sharing-windows-10-a.html
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/61963-sign-windows-10-a.html
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/11129-turn-off-require-sign-wakeup-windows-10-a.html

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Answer 3

Thanks for the suggestion @Limitless Technology but setting aside that sleep isn't involved here, I checked this setting but found it set to "When PC wakes from sleep" and greyed out, with a message at the top that "Some of these settings are hidden or managed by your organization. I found others reporting the same issue, but without reporting a useful fix.

GPResult showed that the obvious GPO setting is not being applied here: System \ Power Managment \ Sleep Settings \ Require a password when a computer wakes (plugged in)

I found advice to use powercfg to change this setting via:

powercfg /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_NONE CONSOLELOCK 0  

But this gives "Group policy override settings exist for this power scheme or power setting." with no mention of what setting is controlling it. And it's not clear where this particular setting is stored, because

powercfg /query SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_NONE  

has no reference to a CONSOLELOCK setting.

I used ProcMon to try to find what registry value was being read when the Sign-in settings are displayed, which turned up two that I wasn't aware of and looked promising:

• HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System\AllowDomainDelayLock: But enabling this only seemed to prevent screen blanking via the power setting, both with and without manually setting what others suggested is the delay interval HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\DelayLockInterval
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DisableLockWorkstation: Enabling this does disable the lock options, but also seemed to prevent screen blanking via the power setting.

So still no fix that works here.

Thanks,
John

Answer 4

Thanks for the links @Docs . The last one could be relevant except the posts I read are mostly/entirely about non-domain systems, and so far non-domain fixes haven't applied to these domain PCs.

Still looking for someone who has resolved this for domain PCs.

John

Answer 5

Should ScreenSaverIsSecure be set to 1 or 0 for this to work.