Solved How does windows know I am away ?

GeneralLee01 said:

Thanks, but I just learned that is not correct.

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Yes and no. @PCUser was correct in that what they described is also possible. Yes, I know that you are talking about the Dynamic Lock, but there is also an option to lock your system after a period of inactivity as they described.

Take a look at this screen for the screensaver settings:



Note that I have Screen saver set to (None), Wait at 10 minutes and On resume, display logon screen selected. This will lock the system and cause the logon screen to be displayed after 10 minutes.

Bottom line is that this will also lock your screen but it has no intelligence - it has no clue whether you are present or not, it is purely based upon how long you have been inactive.

antspants said:

You have to pair your phone

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badrobot said:

When you are away for more than 5 minutes.

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If the phone is the only option, I have to ask, What is MS thinking with? Being away from the computer for a set time would more useful for a lot of us than using our cell phone. I rarely have my phone on me when I'm on my computer. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

hsehestedt said:

That is one of the greatest features ever. I have a ToF (Time of Flight) sensor in my laptop. If I get up and walk away it will lock my within 30 seconds. When I come back, by the time I'm settled in my chair the laptop has detected that someone is there which triggers the Windows Hello camera and unlocks the PC before I could have ever even reached for the keyboard.

It doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you get used to and then have to deal with a system missing that feature it's actually annoying

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That's definitely something that I can see as being very useful.

Winuser said:

If the phone is the only option, I have to ask, What is MS thinking with? Being away from the computer for a set time would more useful for a lot of us than using our cell phone. I rarely have my phone on me when I'm on my computer. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

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In my case, I just set a fairly low time out on the screensaver screen as I showed earlier, but I'm also in the habit of just pressing WinKey + L to lock my system when I'm about to leave. I'm not quite so lazy that I can't hit 2 keys on my way out. I only use the inactivity timeout just in case I forget to manually lock it, but that never happens because it has become habit for me.

hsehestedt said:

In my case, I just set a fairly low time out on the screensaver screen as I showed earlier, but I'm also in the habit of just pressing WinKey + L to lock my system when I'm about to leave. I'm not quite so lazy that I can't hit 2 keys on my way out. I only use the inactivity timeout just in case I forget to manually lock it, but that never happens because it has become habit for me.

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If I was using my computer in a place where I had to worry about others accessing my computer, I think I would want the sensor to lock my computer and the camera to unlock it. Knowing me, My mind would be so concentrated on what I was doing that I would forget to lock it.