Stop Windows Asking for Password on Wake from Sleep?

You’re correct that the security settings on your computer can change when you move from a busy office or shared workspace like a school computer lab to your own home or other space where the chance of someone else accessing your system goes down to zero. Then again, you could also set a PIN which can be super fast to type in, taking away much of the wake up annoyance: My 5 digit pin takes under a second to enter!

Well, let me show you how to gain control of this particular setting in Windows 10 and you can decide for yourself how you’d like to proceed. Confusingly, it’s not located in the energy management area where you might think it’d be an option associate with your sleep settings. In fact, it’s in login options.

To start, here’s the potential bane of your computing existence, a password prompt on wake:

The fastest way to change the setting is through the [Cortana] Windows search feature, as it almost always is. Heck, I don’t even bother going to “Settings” on the menu any more it’s so efficient.

You can try it too, type in “sign-in” and it’ll give you the option of “Sign-In options”:

That’s what you want to choose, so click on “Sign-in options” to proceed.

Interestingly, I’ll note that if you forget the hyphen and search for “sign in” you’ll find that the search is picky and won’t get the above option. Just backspace and fix it to be exactly “sign-in”!

And there’s your setting. “Require sign-in“. You can choose to have it be “When PC wakes up from sleep”, as shown above, or you can choose “Never” if you never want to see it when your computer wakes from sleep. Note that you’ll still need to log in to your account on boot or restart, as you desire, so “Never” should do the trick.

Done. Now, get back to work and stop watching TV! Oh, sorry, that’s what I end up doing when I work at home! 🙂

While you’re here, don’t forget to check out the extensive Windows help throughout the site too. Thanks.