Prevent Disabling The Screen Saver Password

Everyone personalizes their computer to a certain degree, and although screen savers were a requirement for old CRT monitors to prevent blurring of Images and text, they're not needed nowadays for LCD monitors and the like. It Is however, somewhat of a commonality for users to apply a screen saver password and to make sure that no one attempts to remove It, In this tutorial, I will show you how to securely prevent It from being disabled.


Before I begin, here's what I'm referring to. If you've already set a password on your computer, you can configure the screen saver to automatically lock your user session with a password whilst you're away from your PC. This Is done by selecting the On resume, display login screen checkbox as shown below.

Essentially, after a certain period of Inactivity, the screen saver will activate and when you dismiss It, you'll be prompted to enter a password. This comes to very good use to prevent unauthorized access when you're away from your PC.

If you have multiple users sharing your computer, or anyone who's within physical reach, they can attempt to remove the screensaver password In your absence. As such, I will demonstrate how to prevent It from being disabled, by using the good old Group Policy Editor.

Do note that the GPE Is only available In Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise and Education editions. The process Is very simple, so without further delay, let's rip Into this tutorial

Step One:

The first thing you need to do, Is access the Group Policy Editor. Open the Run menu, enter gpedit.msc and hit OK as shown below.

Step Two:

The Group Policy Editor will now open, so navigate to the following directory.

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalization

Make sure the Personalization folder Is selected, and on the right pane, double-click Password protect the screen saver.

Step Three:

To the left of the window, select the Enabled radio button and then hit OK to finalize the process.

Step Four:

From this point forward, disabling the screen saver password Is not possible. Let's make sure the change has taken effect. Enter screen saver In the Windows 10 Search box, and click on Change screen saver.

Last Step:

As expected and as you can see, the On resume, display logon screen option Is grayed out, hence removing the check mark from the checkbox to disable the screen saver password, cannot be done. Perfect!

Final Thoughts:

Throughout my demonstration, I didn't select a screen saver via the drop-down menu so when applying yours, be sure to do so. The advantage of applying the setting In the Group Policy Editor, Is that the average computational user Is unaware of Its existence. And that's what makes It so effective.

To reverse the change and have the screen saver password option functioning as per Its original state, simply refer to Step Three above and select the Not Configured radio button. Don't forget to hit OK on exit.