Keyboard press bypasses lock screen

I've noticed at times after the laptop screen is asleep, at least while on battery power, pressing a key on the keyboard will not only wake it up but cause the lockscreen (showing the time) will just raise up and not show the password prompt. I've yet to figure out why it's doing this. My settings haven't changed.

For Personalization > Lock screen, I have these options set:
- Windows spotlight
- status Dev Home (whatever that means)
- show background pic on sign-in screen
- Screen timeout: on battery, turn off after 3 minutes, put to sleep after 5
- Power mode: Balanced
- Battery saver: at 20% (but irrelevant, not applicable, I pack up when that happens)
- Screen saver: None. Wait: 5 minutes. On resume, display logon screen.
- Power management: Selected plan: Balanced.

I'm not seeing a setting about whether the wake screen will bypass the password prompt. As far as I can tell, if the screen goes to sleep or the screensaver activates, interacting with the computer is supposed to give me the password screen.

Normally I press the spacebar to get the wake screen, which shows the time, then I hit it again (or Ctrl+Alt+Delete), which gives me the password screen. I can't tell what's causing the screen to swipe up instead at times. Note that it's not a touchscreen, and I'm not swiping the touchpad. I'm on a Dell Latitude 3520 with auto-updating Windows 11 Pro, and I haven't installed anything related to Windows settings, it's all out of the box. Thanks

Go into Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options
Under additional settings what is 'If you've been away..." set to. Set it to 'Every time' to require authentication

neemobeer said:

Go into Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options
Under additional settings what is 'If you've been away..." set to. Set it to 'Every time' to require authentication

Click to expand...

it's already set to Every Time.

Now what?

Have you confirmed that your system is actually going to sleep?

Look for Status of SLEEP

neemobeer said:

Have you confirmed that your system is actually going to sleep?

Code:

powercfg /sleepstudy

Look for Status of SLEEP

Click to expand...

Not sure what you're looking for.

The word "Status" is not in the generated HTML file.

The word "sleep" is all over the place.



So, it appears the laptop is going to sleep while on battery and inactivity timeout, but that file is huge, so can you please be more specific as to what to look for when trying to determine why my sleeping black screen sometimes doesn't go to the lockscreen but just swipes upward and away when I tap a key or touch the pad?

State is what I meant. Does your system require a password only occasionally? If yes you will need to see if when it does it corresponds to date/times when the state actually changes to Sleep. I only see a few instances of it entering sleep from the screenshot, or click on the start menu and select sleep from the power menu and see if it actually locks or not. Make sure to give the computer a few seconds before hitting the keyboard for it to enter sleep mode

advanced power options - require password after wake... is that turned on?

neemobeer said:

Does your system require a password only occasionally?

Click to expand...

What? What do you mean by occasionally? The system requires a password for login and wake. That's it. That's what it's supposed to do according to the settings I thought I already set. I don't want it to sometimes not ask for password, I want to always ask for password during login and screen wake. Period.

neemobeer said:

Make sure to give the computer a few seconds before hitting the keyboard for it to enter sleep mode

Click to expand...

As I stated in the original post, it happened after being away from the computer for a while. This wasn't the screen being asleep for some seconds. My settings appear to be set to force login upon screen sleep with no delay.

What am I missing here? Is there a setting to change "wait x seconds" to 0? I thought I already had that on there. I've been doing that for all of my Windows computers for years, and all of my Android phones. I can't tell why Windows 11 is ignoring me.

dacrone said:

advanced power options - require password after wake... is that turned on?

Enable or Disable Require Sign-in on Wakeup in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable to require sign-in on wakeup from sleep, hibernate, or Modern Standby for all users in Windows 11. To help secure your PC, Windows requires users to sign in on wakeup from sleep, hibernate, or resuming from Modern Standby (if supported) by...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

Looking that over, my settings appear to be correct, like with:



It's set to "Every Time", not a timed delay like 1 minute onward. It's behaving like "Every Time" means "sometimes just don't" or "after a second or few I guess"... I feel like I'm telling Kelso of That '70s Show to handle my lockscreen.

OK so "Dynamic lock" is unchecked for me:



I honestly don't understand the point of this with the other setting to lock "Every Time" I'm "away" This is just goofy.

When I check it, it says "Dynamic lock is not working because Bluetooth is off"... um... WTH does Bluetooth have to do with this?! I usually have it off because I don't need it on.





Maybe this is another one of those bad terminology issues, or lack of proper description, in Windows... I've been struggling with Mic input and WiFi issues over partly the same reasons, so this isn't surprising to me. I'm just gonna leave it unchecked. The previous setting for Every Time should be adequate at least that's how it appears to be. It's so frustrating when something doesn't actually behave the way it's described.

From that link's screenshot, I don't have the drop-down to select "Never" or "When PC wakes up from sleep". No idea why.

> advanced power options - require password after wake... is that turned on?

I'm not seeing where this is... I found maybe what you were talking about in Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Power Options > Edit Plan Settings > Change advanced power settings... but nothing there seems like it'll fix the issue:



The "Sleep after" section is already set to what I want but has nothing to do with the lockscreen wake from screen sleep, "sleep" in this context refers to the computer going to sleep (as in, all activity stops on it, while screen sleep still allows activity), and the display setting is different:



The Group Policy suggestions (Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Power Management > Sleep Settings > Require a password when the computer wakes) show neither type configured (plugged in or on battery)... but... why is getting so deep into settings required for that?! All I can do is try it and see if this additional setting which looks like it does the same thing as "Every Time" will actually work.

I then discovered that the problem may be a grace period for screen sleep OK, I get that, it's an Android toggle, but why doesn't Windows 11 have it in normal Settings after all these years?! That grace period may be why I'm getting the issue, but I'm pretty sure more than a few seconds passed.

However, apparently the only way to set that grace period to 0 is to modify registry settings Here I go back to Windows XP days...


Except that... there's no "Winlogon" in "CurrentVersion", so I don't know where "ScreenSaverGracePeriod" is...

OK back to Google again...

you're looking for the setting in my image. if its not there, use the link i posted to enable it via registry, then set it and try.

Your setting looks like the same thing I just Enabled in Group Policy.

I don't see the same thing you do.



Why?