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Do you find the Windows 10 lock screen inconvenient and unnecessary in desktop computers? This post explains the different methods to disable Lock Screen in Windows 10 Anniversary Update v1607 and higher.

Windows 10 v1511 allowed users to disable Lock Screen using Group Policy or equivalent registry-based policy setting. Unfortunately, Microsoft took back this GPO setting in the Anniversary Update.

With the Anniversary Update, the NoLockScreen registry value and its corresponding GPO “Do not display the lock screen” has no effect in Windows 10 Home and Professional Editions. These settings now apply only to Enterprise and Education editions. But here are some ways to disable Windows 10 Lock Screen — instructions apply to any edition and build of Windows 10.

Disable Lock Screen in Windows 10

Method 1: Using Task Scheduler

The following registry value if set to 0, disables the lock screen and shows the logon screen instead when the computer is locked. Note that the lock screen would still show at startup and there seems to be no workaround for that, other than using a 3rd party patching tool as in “Option 3” in this post.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\SessionData

The problem is, every time you login to your account or unlock the computer, the value data is automatically set to 1.

A participant at Quarter to three forums (via Ghacks) has a clever workaround for this. The trick is to create a Scheduled Task which resets the value data to 0 on these two trigger events:

At logon Workstation unlock

Create a task that runs the following command-line, and set it to run with highest privileges.

reg.exe add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\SessionData /t REG_DWORD /v AllowLockScreen /d 0 /f

Download the Task

To quickly create this task, download Disable Lock Screen.XML task. Then from the Actions pane in Task Scheduler, click Import task.. and import the XML file you downloaded.

After importing it, the task properties would look like this:

After importing the task, lock the computer (WinKey + L) to test it. From the 2nd time, you’ll see the logon screen instead of the lock screen.

Method 2: Rename the LockApp folder

When you lock the workstation the system runs LockApp.exe which is responsible for displaying the Lock Screen. So to prevent it from running, simply rename the following folder using File Explorer.

C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.LockApp_cw5n1h2txyewy

Add “-OLD” suffix to that folder, so that the system won’t be able to locate LockApp.exe.

There are many PC and laptop users who are not very much fond of the Lock screen. The lock screen although conceals the login screen with a nice looking wallpaper, it take an extra mouse click or key press to go to the login screen where you input your credentials. This is not just during the first login, but every time you need to unlock a workstation – locked either due to screensaver or power options timeout, when resuming from sleep or hibernate mode, or the user voluntarily locked the workstation earlier. The extra key press is certainly a pain for PC, laptop users.

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