How to Disable Windows 8.1 Lock Screen

This tutorial is for all users who don’t like to be prompted with the Windows 8.1 lock screen. Once you are finished with this guide the lock screen will be permanently disabled, unless you re-enable it.

Video Tutorial:

Method 1 Editing Group Policy Editor:

1. Press the “Windows key + R” on your keyboard to open Run window, then type gpedit.msc and click OK to open Group Policy Editor.

This Local Group Policy Editor is only available in the Pro version of  Windows 8.1.

Disable Lock Screen in Windows 8 and 8.1

2. In the Local Group Policy Editor go to:

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Control Panel -> Personalization

Disable Lock Screen in Windows 8 and 8.1 2

3. In right pane, double-click on “Do not display the lock screen” Policy and set it to “Enabled“.

Disable Lock Screen in Windows 8 and 8.1 3

4. Now click on Apply then OK. That’s it. It’ll immediately disable the lock screen in Windows 8.1

5. If you want to enable lock screen again, set the value to Not configured.

Method 2 Using Registry Editor:

This method is for users who don’t have the Pro Version of Windows 8.1

1. Press the “Windows key + R” on your keyboard to open Run window, then type regedit and click OK. To open Registry Editor.

disable the lock screen

2. In the Registry Editor go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  -> SOFTWARE -> Policies -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Personalization

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If the NoLockScreen DWORD doesn’t exist, you’ll need to manually create it.

3. To create it just right click on the right pane, create a new DWORD (32-bit) and call it NoLockScreen and set its value data to 1.

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4. Close Registry Editor and restart Windows 8.1 to take effect.  If you want to restore the lock screen in future, just delete the DWORD or set the value data to 0.

NOTE: If you don’t want to go through all that trouble, and you wish to do this automatically just download the following Registry script. Download the ZIP file, extract it and run the extracted REG file:

Download Disable Lock Screen for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1

Miguel

I started this tech blog back in 2011 as a place to write down processes I took to fix my client systems and network. Now I write some tips and tricks to help others with the tech issues that one might encounter.

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2 Responses

  1. Simon says:

    How did you make your cursor appear yellow?