The Lemon Fool

I hate the Windows 10 Lock Screen, and have tried to get rid of it. I followed the instructions here:

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-disa ... ck-screen/

My Registry Editor window looks exactly the same as the screenshot in the link, except that the hexadecimal value has been set to 1. When I restart, the lock screen is still there.

I've just done that on my Windows 10 machine (running Win10 64bit 1909).

The Lock Screen has gone as described - the PC rebooted straight to the login screen.

Obvious questions - did you restart the PC, or just Shutdown. They're not the same. Doo you still have to wake the PC out of the lock screen to get the login screen?

GeoffF100 wrote:
When I restart, the lock screen is still there.

Have a read of this Geoff, and see if it helps -

Shutting Down Doesn’t Fully Shut Down Windows 10 (But Restarting Does) -

https://www.howtogeek.com/349114/shutti ... g-it-does/

TLDR - Use the 'Restart' option instead of the 'Shutdown' option, or hold down the 'SHIFT KEY' when you select the 'Shutdown' option..

Cheers,

Itsallaguess (fully aware that you're now probably adding a new line to your 'Why I hate Windows 10' list....)

No, it is not that. I still get the lock screen when I use Restart. I went to great lengths to disable Fast Boot and reclaim the disk space from the command line when I had a dual boot with Ubuntu. Hopefully, Windows has not reinstated it. I have an SSD and do not want to wear it out with Fast Boot.

Here is an image of my Regedit window:

https://imgur.com/a/2hYyGvN

Does that look right?

GeoffF100 wrote:
Does that look right?

I don't think so.

Your Regedit path is shown on that screen-shot (https://imgur.com/a/2hYyGvN) to be :-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Personalization

but the first link you were given by chas (https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-disa ... ck-screen/) states the following Regedit path -

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Personalization

As does this second set of instructions just to help verify the above - https://www.thewindowsclub.com/disable-lock-screen-windows-8

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Thank you very much for that. I will give it another go when I have time. What I have put in the wrong place does not appear to be doing any harm. Is there a way a deleting it, or should I just leave well alone?

GeoffF100 wrote:
Thank you very much for that. I will give it another go when I have time.

What I have put in the wrong place does not appear to be doing any harm.

Is there a way a deleting it, or should I just leave well alone?

Personally, I'd probably rewind any of the original changes that I'd made, but that's just me.

I'd be interested to hear if the correct registry changes works for you when you get a chance to try it. Given the similarity between the two linked Windows 10 fixes for this issue, it seems as though they should.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

GeoffF100 wrote:Thank you very much for that. I will give it another go when I have time. What I have put in the wrong place does not appear to be doing any harm. Is there a way a deleting it, or should I just leave well alone?

As ITS says, it's probably best to clean up any unwanted changes to the registry. Just follow the previous instructions, but go to the 'wrong' entry as before and reverse the changes you made. Of course, if you're not confident about getting this right, it may be safer to leave it alone.

Itsallaguess wrote:

GeoffF100 wrote:
Does that look right?

..... the first link you were given by chas

Actually, the link was the OP's

Just to clarify my previous post (now I'm at a proper keyboard):

to remove the erroneous registry entry, open the Registry Editor, navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Personalization

Right-click on the Personalization key in the left pane, and click delete, and follow the prompts:

See image:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhIHgH-aLyVwgZEW7CYhgSVnRkGfYw

Thank you very much for the help so far. I successfully deleted my incorrect key, but I am getting deeper into trouble. I got as far as inserting another key, realised that my Regedit screen was not the same as that in the article, and deleted it. I appear to have created a new directory call Personalization. Should I delete that too? Here is my Regedit screen:

https://imgur.com/a/5qFifm1

I have sussed it. I found another article:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disa ... ock-screen

That has the same instructions as the previous one, but the screen shot is the same as mine. I put the key back in, closed Regedit and rebooted. No Lock Screen!

Windows 10 is already looking much better. Not only have I got rid of the Lock Screen, but I now have every open document on the Task Bar. I have also changed the wall paper to the one I an using with Xubuntu:

https://galeria.szabadpingvin.eu/Szubje ... k.jpg.html

Cortana is a pain in the bum. I could get rid of that with another Registry hack, if I dare, but it is not doing too much harm. The Task View is also a waste of space on the Task Bar.

GeoffF100 wrote:Cortana is a pain in the bum. I could get rid of that with another Registry hack, if I dare, but it is not doing too much harm. The Task View is also a waste of space on the Task Bar.

Hmmm....I'm not bothered by Cortana on either of my W10 systems and I'm pretty sure I didn't make any registry changes for it. I see I have everything under Settings->Cortana turned off, so that's probably enough.

Re Task View: right click on the task bar and untick Show Task View Button.

Thanks for that. I right clicked on the task bar and was able to untick Show task view button and Show Cortana button. I alos appear to have improved the highlighting of the Title Bars by Fidling around with the settings in Colours. The desktop is looking much more tidy now. The Start Menu is still a mess, but that is not a big issue.

GeoffF100 wrote:I went to great lengths to disable Fast Boot and reclaim the disk space from the command line when I had a dual boot with Ubuntu. Hopefully, Windows has not reinstated it. I have an SSD and do not want to wear it out with Fast Boot.

Hi Geoff,

May I ask why fast boot would wear out an SSD? Thanks.

Cinelli

cinelli wrote:May I ask why fast boot would wear out an SSD?

In Windows, fast boot is a form of hibernation. The current state of the kernel is written to C:\hiberfil.sys every time you shut down.

Reloading the kernel from the hibernation file is faster than reading all the OS files from the disk. With an SSD the advantage gained is minimal, more so if the OS is being loaded up from an HDD.

cinelli wrote:

GeoffF100 wrote:I went to great lengths to disable Fast Boot and reclaim the disk space from the command line when I had a dual boot with Ubuntu. Hopefully, Windows has not reinstated it. I have an SSD and do not want to wear it out with Fast Boot.

Hi Geoff,

May I ask why fast boot would wear out an SSD? Thanks.

Cinelli

With Fast Boot, the OS writes a copy of what you have in RAM to disk. When you next switch on, it copies that copy back into RAM and starts executing where you left off. That happens every time you shut down your computer. (The OS may do a full boot after some or all OS updates, but that is another matter.)

Unlike hard drives, SSDs have limited life in terms of the total amount of data that can be written to them. My 120 GB Kingston A400 is rated to take 5 TB. If I did fast boots with 4 GB in RAM, I would reach the specified life after 5,000 / 4 = 1,250 Fast Boots. If I averaged on Fast Boot per day, my SSD would be at risk of burn out after about 3.4 years. I typically boot my machine several times a day, so Fast Boot would not be a good idea for me. You can get SSDs that are rated to allow more data to be written to them before they burn out, but they are more expensive.

Fast Boot is a big advantage with a hard drive, but you do not really need it with an SSD. Both my Windows 10 and my Linux machines do a full boot in a few seconds - about the time that it takes me to change my glasses and sit down.

GeoffF100 wrote:I have sussed it. I found another article:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disa ... ock-screen

That has the same instructions as the previous one, but the screen shot is the same as mine. I put the key back in, closed Regedit and rebooted. No Lock Screen!.

Glad you got it sorted. The key in that article is the same though,
Software\Policies etc, rather than Software\Microsoft etc.

chas49 wrote:

GeoffF100 wrote:I have sussed it. I found another article:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disa ... ock-screen

That has the same instructions as the previous one, but the screen shot is the same as mine. I put the key back in, closed Regedit and rebooted. No Lock Screen!.

Glad you got it sorted. The key in that article is the same though, Software\Policies etc, rather than Software\Microsoft etc.

No the keys shown in the screen shots in the two articles are not the same.

Incorrect CNET key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Personalization

Correct Windows Central key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization

Nonetheless, as I have said, the instructions given in the two articles are the same. I expect that the author of the CNET article copied the instructions from somewhere else, typed them incorrectly, took the screen shot, and did not test the result. I followed the instructions very carefully and was mightily confused when I found that my screen was different to the screen shot in the article.

GeoffF100 wrote:No the keys shown in the screen shots in the two articles are not the same.

Incorrect CNET key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Personalization

Correct Windows Central key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization

Nonetheless, as I have said, the instructions given in the two articles are the same. I expect that the author of the CNET article copied the instructions from somewhere else, typed them incorrectly, took the screen shot, and did not test the result. I followed the instructions very carefully and was mightily confused when I found that my screen was different to the screen shot in the article.

Oh, I see now - the instructions were right but the screenshots didn't match the instructions.... Good end result eventually.

GeoffF100 wrote:I typically boot my machine several times a day,.

I'm intrigued - I boot my machine at most once a day, more typically once a week.

Oh, and you may be worrying overly - I believe fast boot dumps the kernel and associated data structures to disk, not the whole of memory. See https://www.howtogeek.com/243901/the-pr ... rtup-mode/ for example.