We all know how to lock our smartphones. But how can you lock Windows 10? We are not talking about permanently putting it in a lock to safeguard it with military encryption. Instead, just like temporary protection to prevent someone else from using your computer when you are moving away from the device. Luckily, there is a built-in method Windows 10 provides that allows its users to lock the device, and easily gain back access whenever they come back. In this article, we are going to look at that feature and guide you through the steps.
Steps to Lock Windows 10
Just press Windows + L keys if you do not want to spend time locking the device following the below steps. It is the shortcut for the following steps to lock the screen.
- Click on the Start Menu button.
- Then click on your profile icon.
- In the menu that shows up, simply click on Lock.
That’s it, you have successfully locked your Windows 10 PC and no one will be able to access it if you have a password set. Keep in mind that, if you do not have a password configured, simply clicking on the screen or pressing any of the keyboard buttons will unlock the device. Just like if your smartphone doesn’t have a password, anyone will be able to easily unlock it just by sliding up the lock screen. It works the same for Windows 10 as well. So if you want to protect your device from unauthorized access when you are away from it, be sure to set a password as well.
In addition to the steps already mentioned above and the shortcut to lock the screen, you can also use Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys on your keyboard and then choose Lock from the options. Hopefully, that is enough ways to lock your device.
Automatically Lock Windows 10
Now we know the steps required to manually lock the device. But how can we make the locking process automatic? If you own a smartphone, you already know that the device will automatically get locked as soon as the screen goes off unless you change the settings manually. So is there a way to make that possible on Windows 10 as well? Yes, there is.
- In the start menu search area, simply search for Screen Saver.
- Click on the Change Screen Saver option that shows up.
- Select a screen saver of your choice.
- Choose the time you want it to wait before the screen goes of due to inactivity.
- Then check the box On resume, display logon screen.
- Click OK.
From now on, your computer will lock itself after the specified amount of time and show the screen saver of your choice on the screen. Whenever someone tries to gain access to the device, it will show a login screen where they will have to input your password. That’s it, we just implemented an auto-lock feature on your Windows 10 PC. Like we already mentioned in the previous steps, you should have a password set for the login screen to show up, if not anyone can directly access the device