Solved Can I use the lock screen as a screen saver?

[MrPhilicorda]

Hi, first post here by a rather happy Lenovo Yoga 13 + Windows 8 user.

As the topic says, is it possible to have the lockscreen turn on automatically after a few minutes?

As it is now I can only get to the lock screen after waking up the computer from the screen saver. I would like to have it configured so that the traditional screen saver is bypassed and it goes straight to the lock screen and stays there forever until I swipe it up.

I think the lockscreen is a very beautiful feature and it's great to see all these small notifications. It would be wonderful to just be able to glance at my computer and seeing these notifications without actually having to touch it.

I feel it's kind of useless to only see the lock screen while you're actually logging in, because then you'll see your notifications anyway on your start screen.

 

[Phone Man]

The easiest way is to right click your account icon on top right of Start Screen and Lock it.

Don't know of a way to auto lock.

Jim

 

[MrPhilicorda]

The easiest way is to right click your account icon on top right of Start Screen and Lock it.

Don't know of a way to auto lock.

Jim

Thanks. That's one step closer to what I want. Allthough it would be nice to have it auto lock and also to be able to swipe up the lock screen straight to the start screen without having to enter you password (like on Windows Phone) but I guess I'm asking for too much.

 

[Wullail]

The easiest way is to right click your account icon on top right of Start Screen and Lock it.

Don't know of a way to auto lock.

Jim

Thanks. That's one step closer to what I want. Allthough it would be nice to have it auto lock and also to be able to swipe up the lock screen straight to the start screen without having to enter you password (like on Windows Phone) but I guess I'm asking for too much.

Aye , that auto-lock only kicks in when a screensaver is set to auto-start after a set time....

Unless you can find a screensaver that only lasts....1 second.... <hmmm>

 

[Brink]

Hello MrPhilicorda, and welcome to Eight Forums.

It's not exactly what you are wanting, but here are a couple of more options to help make it easier to manually lock the PC at will.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4996-lock-computer-add-desktop-context-menu-windows-8-a.html

Lock Computer and Turn Off Monitor - Add to Desktop Context Menu - Windows 7 Help Forums

Lock Computer - Create Shortcut - Windows 7 Help Forums

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[MrPhilicorda]

Thanks for the links Shawn. I just created a shortcut for the lock screen and it certainly makes it slightly easier. Now, one more thing. How can I bypass the password when swiping up the lock screen like he does in this video at about 1:40?

Lenovo Unboxed: IdeaPad Yoga - YouTube

 

[Brink]

The only way to do that would to not have a password for the user account that you locked the PC from. This way when you unlock the PC, it signs into the account automatically since it's not password protected.

It's not recommended since it would be a security risk without a password though.

 

[MrPhilicorda]

Okay, I see. Intresting thing about creating a shortcut for the lock screen: whenever I'm logging in again I end up on the desktop, not the start screen. I did however see the tip on Windows key + L, think I'll use that for now.

 

[Brink]

Interesting. Do you have the Desktop tile moved to the 1st position (top left) on the Start screen? If so, see if dragging it to another position will have it unlock to the Start screen instead.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/7449-desktop-start-when-sign-close-apps-windows-8-a.html

 

[Phone Man]

Interesting. Do you have the Desktop tile moved to the 1st position (top left) on the Start screen? If so, see if dragging it to another position will have it unlock to the Start screen instead.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/7449-desktop-start-when-sign-close-apps-windows-8-a.html

I just tried the Win+L while looking at this thread and when I signed in it opened right back here. I moved the Desktop icon to a different location (it was at top Left) and still comes back to where I left off. Learned something new today.

Jim

 

[Brink]

Interesting. Do you have the Desktop tile moved to the 1st position (top left) on the Start screen? If so, see if dragging it to another position will have it unlock to the Start screen instead.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/7449-desktop-start-when-sign-close-apps-windows-8-a.html

I just tried the Win+L while looking at this thread and when I signed in it opened right back here. I moved the Desktop icon to a different location (it was at top Left) and still comes back to where I left off. Learned something new today.

Jim

Thinking about it, it's normal for it to open to where you were when you locked the PC.

 

[MrPhilicorda]

Interesting. Do you have the Desktop tile moved to the 1st position (top left) on the Start screen? If so, see if dragging it to another position will have it unlock to the Start screen instead.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/7449-desktop-start-when-sign-close-apps-windows-8-a.html

Hi, tried moving the Desktop tile into different positions but it still unlocks straight to the Desktop. Oh well, the Win+L shortcut will have to do for now. Just hoping there will be an auto lock feature coming at some point.

Thanks for all the help and suggestion.

 

[MrPhilicorda]

Yay, looks like my prayers have been answered in Windows 8.1! If you scroll down to the screen shot of the settings you can see the text "When my PC is inactive, show the lock screen instead of turning off the screen".

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/27769-lock-screen-slide-show-turn-off-windows-8-1-a.html

 

[Brink]

Great news.

 

[MrPhilicorda]

So, Windows 8.1 is here and I got what I wanted... kind of.

The option "When my PC is inactive, show the lock screen instead of turning off the screen" only works when you have activated the lock screen slide show. What I actually wanted it to do was to show the default lock screen image indefinately after a certain period of inactivity, but now I only get the default image for a couple of seconds and then it reverts to the slide show.

Well, the work around for this was to find the location of the default lock screen images, copy the desired image and paste it as two copies with different names into a new folder (one image is not enough for a slide show) and then choose this folder to be your slide show for the lock screen. So, now after 1 minute of inactivity my computer shows the lock screen and then reverts to a slide show with the exact same images as the lock screen. The only small annoyance is that, because it's a slide show, the images are moving & zooming slightly so you can tell it's not the real lock screen but I guess I can live with that. It's 99% of what I actually wanted.

One weird thing though, I only get the lock screen slide show if I set the screen to turn off after 1 minute. If I change it to let's say 3 minutes, the screen goes completely black instead. Anyone know what the deal is with that?

Oh, and apologies for being so OCD about this subject...

 

[Brink]

How does it work with the two settings boxed in red below set like this for the lock screen slide show?

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/27769-lock-screen-slide-show-turn-off-windows-8-1-a.html

 

[MrPhilicorda]

How does it work with the two settings boxed in red below set like this for the lock screen slide show?

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/27769-lock-screen-slide-show-turn-off-windows-8-1-a.html


View attachment 30483

My settings are just like in the screen shot. I think the blue slider, when "off", means that your slide show will only show if you lock your screen manually. When it's on (like in the picture) the slide show also comes on automatically after a certain period of inactivity.

 

[Brink]

If the slider is turned on, it should show the lock slide show instead of turning off the display screens after being idle X amount of minutes.

It seemed to me that you could set it like that above, then set to turning off the screens after X amount of minutes to show the lock screen slide show instead of turning off the screens.

 

[MrPhilicorda]

Oh maybe I didn't explain it properly. My settings for the lock screen have always been the same, and that's like in the highlighted red box in the screen shot. How ever, I set the time-out for the screen in "Power options" (not sure it's called like that in English since my computer is Swedish) in the Control Panel. The weird thing is that my lock screen slide show only comes on if the time-out is 1 minute, I tried on several other occasions setting it to 3 minutes but that only leads to the screen turning off completely.

 

[Brink]

Yeah, that's what I couldn't figure out either as to why it's still turning off your screens after 3 minutes instead of showing the lock screen like how you have set, but works fine if set to 1 minute.

Do you have your screen saver settings set to (None), and have the "On resume, display logon screen" box unchecked?