Solved Windows 11 Lock Screen not timing out and not requiring password

I am new to your forum. I am a long time computer user with intermediate skills. I am retired from automotive engineering development. I volunteer at our local museum and help with IT support.

We just installed two new computer systems with Windows 11 OS and neither one will go to lock screen or request login. If you manually lock them (Ctrl-Alt-Del) they lock and require password or PIN in this case to login, as well as after booting up. We need this to work because we have the public in our rooms with computers. Also of importance is we do not let the computers Sleep because we access them to work from home and maintain them without the Wake on LAN feature used.

I have Googled 15 or so "fixes" for this issue and none work. I have gone through, I believe, all possible settings controlling this feature. I have used the GUI interface so far and not any register modifications as I don't feel this should be necessary to resolve the issue. Both Settings and Control Panel GUI.

I have two computers at home running Windows 11 and I am fairly familiar with the OS but don't use lock screen at home.

Computer Specs of affected systems BOTH are identical systems:

Dell Inspiron 3891 Desktop
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, WiFi-AX, Bluetooth

• Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700 2.10 GHz
• Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)
• Device ID CC9C2B08-D125-4411-ACC5-FA68D63F23DB
• Product ID 00330-80122-95428-AA947
• System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
• Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display
• Edition Windows 11 Pro
• Version 22H2
• Installed on ‎12/‎14/‎2022
• OS build 22621.963
• Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22638.1000.0
• Office 365 on both machines.

Thank you for your time

Hello, and welcome.

You can test to see if the Interactive logon: Machine inactivity limit policy in the tutorial below may work for you for this situation.

The Interactive logon: Machine inactivity limit security policy setting allows you to specify an amount in seconds of user inactivity to wait before Windows will automatically lock the computer, and require sign in to resume.

Thank you for your reply, I will look into your suggestion. I will reply when I get to it. Holiday is closing in on us.

I did try your #6 suggestion in your tutorial -
Lock Computer in Windows 11 it did nothing. I will try the above.

Old Guy51
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Old Guy51 said:

I did try your #6 suggestion in your tutorial -
Lock Computer in Windows 11 it did nothing. I will try the above.

Click to expand...

Just to confirm, did you use step 5 in option 6 below? This of course will only affect the current user account, and not all users like the policy above will.

Yes sir I did do step 5 in option 6, that's what is so wierd. It seems nothing in settings works.

Odd. I hope the policy will work you then.

Just to let you know, I have not been able to get back to working on computers with Christmas, maybe this week. I don't understand why Policy has to be used to set lock screen. It should be very simple, my own at home have no issues. Is it possible during setup an incorrect setting was chosen by installer? If so, what would that be? Or could it be the software setup that came with the Dells?

Oldguy

There's no telling, but I'd recommend testing the policy when able to see if it may force its hand.

I understand and will do, just wanted to let you know.

Finally found out the issue, I did not have the screen saver time out set longer than the lock screen timeout. Both were set the same and that will not work. A friend suggested that after reading online somewhere. It makes sense that is was something simple, not require any lengthy or difficult fix.

Also as a note to help others, I started working on the settings in person on the two machines but was working remotely with TeamViewer and did not even think that it would keep the remote awake even if I had set it correctly. I verified by trying it both ways and it works with proper settings when I end the remote session, wait desired time, and log back in remotely.

I don't think I will forget this one.

After reading the problem and its solution, it sounds like a Windows session does not automatically go to lock screen after X amount of time unless Screensaver is enabled. Is this the way Windows is supposed to work?
I mean, Screensaver is not enabled by default, but screen locking is supposed to happen anyways, AFAIK.

shmu26 said:

After reading the problem and its solution, it sounds like a Windows session does not automatically go to lock screen after X amount of time unless Screensaver is enabled. Is this the way Windows is supposed to work?
I mean, Screensaver is not enabled by default, but screen locking is supposed to happen anyways, AFAIK.

Click to expand...

Hello,

Normally, you do not need to have screensaver enabled to use this below.