The lock screen is very useful on smartphones, but it is superfluous on laptops or fixed PCs with Windows 10, where it is preferable to have quick access without having to click superfluous. If the lock screen of your PC with Windows 10 appears suddenly, without being required (often after a few minutes of absence) or on a PC that you use only you (moreover at home), we can permanently deactivate it using the settings offered by Windows 10.
The situation is different in the case of shared PCs, work PCs or public workstations, where it is good practice to always activate the lock screen with a password (to prevent someone from seeing our documents and our work).
So let's see all the methods to disable the lock screen on the latest versions of Windows 10.
READ ALSO -> Recover Windows 10 password or PIN from the lock screen
NOTE: The lock screen in Windows 10 is the one with the clock, different from the login one which instead would always be better left active.
If you also want to disable the screen with the login, refer to another article on how to remove the password request when Windows starts
In this guide we will show you how to disable the lock screen in both scenarios where we can meet it, i.e. at login (as soon as the PC is turned on) or after a screen timeout or PC suspension (energy saving settings active by default on all PCs with Windows 10).
For maximum effectiveness we follow both methods, so as to completely unlock the computer and access it without any waste of time.
Remember, however, that the screen lock is always available by pressing the WIN + L buttons on the keyboard, so that we can lock the PC at the times when we consider it appropriate; obviously this "on command" block makes sense only if we have an active password, otherwise we forget it!
1) Disable lock screen on login
If our account already has a password assigned, press the WIN + R keys together to open the Run window, then type the netplwiz command inside .
We click OK to continue.
To deactivate the password request at each login (and consequently deactivate the lock screen, useless without a password), simply remove the check mark from the entry. To use this computer, the user must enter the name and password .
Now we press down on the Apply button; we will see a confirmation window appear, in which to select the user account with which to log in automatically (if there are more than one account) and enter, in the appropriate fields, the password we used to log in, so as to confirm the change .
These steps can be applied to both local accounts and to Microsoft or Outlook accounts assigned to Windows 10.
To finish press OK and restart the PC; the lock screen will disappear and the computer will automatically log in to the selected user account.
The same procedure can be used to reset the lock screen and password request for all types of accounts.
If our local account did not have a password (when we created the user, we left the password field empty), we can remedy this by opening the Settings app from the Start menu and going to the Account -> Access options path.
In the screen on the right we click the Add button, present under the Password section, so we can choose a new password for our local account.
If the chosen password is too long to remember, we can always add a PIN (4 digits to remember) or a graphic password (actually quite risky).
To completely remove the password request and similar on our PC, completely deactivating the password requests in the lock screens (even those that we do not yet disable!) Just go to the same screen, click on the Change button under the Password section, type the old password and, in the window where we will be asked for the new password, we leave the fields empty (without typing anything), finally confirming on Next .
We will have freed our local account from any kind of password request!
2) Disable sleep lock screen
After seeing how to disable the Windows 10 lock screen at PC startup, we see in this part of the guide how to disable the same screen when the computer screen goes to sleep, usually after a few minutes of inactivity (without ever moving the mouse and no full screen programs).
If on our PC we have left an active password (even if we are no longer asked for it at login), we open the Settings app, looking for it in the Start menu, then go to the Account menu -> Access options .
In the upper part of the window we will find a drop-down menu, under the section Request access, in which we will have to select the item Never .
From now on, the PC can suspend the screen, but just move the mouse to return immediately to the desktop without any password request.
To make this change even more effective, we can completely disable the screen timeout, considering it no longer necessary since modern monitors consume relatively little compared to the real PC.
For this change, open the Settings app again and go to the System -> Power and suspension path, then set the drop-down menus to Never for the items If connected to the mains, deactivate after ( Screen section) and If connected to the mains, the PC goes into hibernation after ( Hibernate section).
If we have a laptop it is better to always leave a screen timeout, so as to save battery when we are away from the mains (a 10 minute timeout is fine).
READ ALSO: Launch a program from the Windows login screen
