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Windows 8 lock/login screen

Did y'all know that, dorsum in the Windows three, 95, and 98 days, you could simply type in your password to log into your computer? Information technology sounds crazy, I know, only it's truthful. Since Windows XP, the process has go steadily more convoluted — picking your avatar from a listing, or striking Ctrl+Alt+Del before existence allowed to log in (this was actually a security feature, believe it or not). Windows eight is the worst offender notwithstanding, positively spitting in the confront of keyboard users — but fortunately, it'southward quite piece of cake to disable the new Windows eight lock screen.

In essence, the new Windows 8 lock/login screen is meant to human action as a dashboard, flashing up notifications for new electronic mail, IMs, and so on. On a tablet, where you swipe the lock screen away and then brainstorm typing, this makes perfect sense. On a desktop PC, though, the lock screen is clunky (yous might say this is a bit of a recurring theme in Windows 8). Yes, theoretically you only have to tap a key and information technology slides away, but for some reason Microsoft introduced a delay so that you can't immediately type your password. As a result, you often terminate up losing the first few letters of your countersign, waiting for Windows to tell you that your countersign is wrong, then typing your password in correctly.

Windows 8 group policy editor: Disabling the lock screen

How to bypass the Windows 8 lock screen

To remove the lock screen entirely, then that locking is just a obviously password prompt — and booting up goes straight to the same password prompt — but follow these very elementary steps.

  1. Hitting the Start key, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter. This volition open the Local Grouping Policy Editor.
  2. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Authoritative Templates > Command Panel > Personalization
  3. Double click "Exercise not display the lock screen," and select Enabled from the dialog that pops up. Click OK.

The change is firsthand. Go ahead and printing Win+50 and adore your new, minimal lock screen.

Windows 8 lock screen begone!

In add-on, if you're feeling really sassy, you lot can as well tweak your calculator to boot straight to Desktop, either with Windows 8's built-in Task Scheduler, or by using a 3rd-party Kickoff card replacement, most of which include this functionality as a configurable choice. This manner, the Desktop volition be the second screen you come across, instead of the quaternary — neat.

Check out our Windows viii tips folio for more than… Windows 8 tips.