Windows times out after 3 minutes of inactivity despite GPOs

Question

I have rolled out one Computer policy that does the following:

Specify the unattended sleep timeout (on battery) Enabled

Unattended Sleep Timeout (seconds): 1800

Specify the unattended sleep timeout (plugged in) Enabled

Unattended Sleep Timeout (seconds): 3600

Turn off the display (on battery) Enabled

Turn Off the Display (seconds): 900

Turn off the display (plugged in) Enabled

Turn Off the Display (seconds): 900

Another Computer policy that rolls out a Power Plan that does the following:

Turn off hard disk after: After 120 minutes

Sleep after: After 60 minutes

Turn off display after: After 30 minutes

And a User policy that does the following:

Enable screen saver Enabled

Force specific screen saver Enabled

Screen saver executable name scrnsave.scr

Screen saver timeout Enabled

Number of seconds to wait to enable the screen saver

Seconds: 900

I have also edited the registry here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSe\ Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\7bc4a2f9-d8fc-4469-b07b-33eb785aaca0\Attributes

To locally check/change the timeout.

And here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99\8EC4B3A5-6868-48c2-BE75-4F3044BE88A7\Attributes

To manually change the Console lock display time.

Yet still a great number of machines displays go black and lock after 3 minutes of inactivity.

Answer 1

Hello MicrosoftSufferer,

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

Based on the description, you do not want the machine go black and lock after 3 minutes of inactivity, am I right? If so, you can try to check if there is GPO setting below to control it.

The GPO setting that can be used to make a machine lock after a certain period of inactivity is called "Interactive logon: Machine inactivity limit". This setting can be found in the Group Policy Editor under Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options. By default, this setting is not configured, but you can enable it and set the time limit to 180 seconds (3 minutes) or any other value you prefer.

If it is not the GPO setting above, you can try to export GPO result on one problematic machine and then check if there is any GPO setting enabled with 180 seconds.

For checking Computer Configuration within gpresult, we can follow steps below.

Logon this machine using administrator account.

Open CMD (run as Administrator).

Type gpresult /h C:\gpo.html and click Enter.

Open gpo.html and check gpo setting under "Computer Details".

For checking User Configurations within gpresult, we can follow steps below.

Logon the machine using normal domain user account (that applies this gpo).

Create a folder named F1 in C drive.

Open CMD (do not run as Administrator).

Type gpresult /h C:\F1\gpo.html and click Enter.

Open gpo.html and check if there are these gpo settings under "User Details".

I hope the information above is helpful.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Daisy Zhou

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