Windows 10: My computer will randomly go to the lock screen

If command prompt is not running as administrator you will not be able to deactivate accounts.

Details view shows last login time which corresponded to the last time my screen went to login.[/quote] Unfortunately, this was apparently not my problem. A day later it started doing it again. So I still don't know why this happens. I ran malware and rootkit scanners and nothing was found.

Now I am thinking maybe it's something to do with Google Chrome. Running out of other ideas.

 

I think I finally figured it out. It was still doing it even after I disabled the Win10 lock screen in group policy and in the registry.

It seems to have finally stopped after I removed the 3389 port forward in my router. I have Win10 Pro with Remote Desktop enabled. So probably a bot or some hacker trying to log into my remote desktop. I guess that triggers a lock screen for some reason. Even when lock screen is disabled. That seems like some sort of bug but at least I figured it out...hopefully.

The problem is I can't use remote desktop now or will have to maybe put it on a different port. I have a secure password and they would never guess my username. So it would be nearly impossible for someone to get in that way. It's just that annoying lock screen when they try for whatever reason.

 

Not sure what you mean by "lock screen is disabled". Apparently there's some terminological mix-up involved here, i.e. which specific screen you call "lock screen".

The original poster was complaining about their computer periodically asking them to re-enter their Windows account password. This screen is what they called "lock screen". And no, it is not possible to "disable" this lock screen. It is a fundamental and essential feature of the OS. What you can do is set up auto-login after boot, which will bypass the lock screen at boot time. But it won't "disable" it. You will still get to the lock screen when you logoff from your Windows account.

Meanwhile, your explanation with someone trying to log in through Remote Desktop sounds fairly plausible.

However, Windows does not normally lock out the current interactive user when some other user is trying to login through RD. Windows will always warn the current interactive user about the other login attempt and ask the current user to either allow the switch to RD session or reject it (with 30 seconds time-out, after which it will lock the interactive account and allow the remote user to login). And apparently nothing like that happens in this scenario.

The only way for a remote RD user to instantly kick out the current interactive user is when the remote user is also you. I.e. the remote RD user is trying to login under your credentials: they know your user name and they know your password. If that's the case, then one thing to try would be to change your password and see whether this strange behavior stops.

Also, you said that you stopped forwarding port 3389. A more interesting thing to try would be to keep 3389 forwarded, but disable RD access in System Properties. Would that fix the problem?

Another interesting thing to try would be to stop forwarding 3389, but instead forward another external port (say, 7090) to local port 3389. Would that fix the problem?

 

The lock screen I am referring to is the lock screen that is enabled when you press [WIN] + L. Yes it is also the same screen you see locally when someone is logging in remotely so I have changed my password. No idea how someone could have gotten by my username and password for that but it looks like that may be what happened.

 

I found my issue (desktop randomly going to Windows Login) using HitmanPro via BleepingComputer.com...it found the Auslogic malware (since have deleted that mess) an Punkbuster (play EA a lot ergo necessary) deleted all the references in Firewall exceptions for PB an started fresh with evenbalance (PB home) haven't had an issue since. Can't say enough about Hitman Pro or BleepingComputer for that matter when it comes to rooting out weird behavior or malware issues, it was definitely malware in my case.

 

Updated to fall creators update and starting going to lock screen again after 15 minutes

 

For starters I would check my Power Settings to see if they have been changed. If the hard drive is set to run a certain number of minutes that could be the culprit.

 

A restart seems to have solved this issue once again

 

OMG this has started happening on my surface pro 1, while typiong this Ive had to unlock 6 times.....

 

Ive only just reintalled windows 10 on this thing literally last weekend!! its the most buggy useless thing Ive ever bought. nothing but non-stop issues with it.

 

I think I've figured out what the issue is.... it must be somehow related to the keyboard drivers. when Ive unplugged my logitech K400r keyboard it seems to have resolved the issue, and as soon as I plugged it back it... it seems to start up again. maybe its a dodgy logitech driver

 

I just reinstalled setpoint and re-plugged in the usb keyboard dongle, and it hasn't locked 15 times while trying to type this. so fingers crossed its resolved and it was just a dodgy logitech setpoint installation.

 

This issue has been happening on and off on both of my labtops. Usually after and update has taken place. Started mod last year and guess what on my main labtop after an update on Dec 30 2017 it is happening again. This is not just an annoying issue I literally can not get work done. It seems the more I use the labtop the more frequent it goes to the login in screen in mid work sometimes every few seconds.

I have done so many things to fix this issue when it occurs I never know what truly fixed it. Seeing how this is on windows forum a few times for the past few years why hasnt a solid resolution been done.


If anyone has any updates on how to fix it, I would appreciate currently my normal go tows of deep malaware scannings, resetting(keeping personal files), restoring power settings (which I believe never works for this issue, uninstalling latest updates for a while no luck

 

This was bothering me for a few years now, going all the way back to Windows 8.1 I think... It did not happen very often, but my system would sometimes go to the lock screen even while it was in use, and when it started, it would continue to happen on a fixed interval (30 minutes on the nose) until I rebooted the system. It wasn't super frequent but I would probably run into this once or twice a month.

A few months back I ended up wiping my system with a fresh Windows install (for a different reason) and it did not take long for this issue to pop back up. What's going on!?

I scoured the Internet (even running across this thread more than once). This morning it happened to me again (locking the system while I was typing a sentence!). I found the solution in this Microsoft article, which claims that a "leak" in LockScreenContentServer.exe can lead to the system spontaneously locking or going to sleep. I checked and, indeed, "LockScreenContentServer.exe" was running on my system even though it is supposed to halt when the machine is unlocked, which the article points to as a tell-tale sign of this issue.

After my machine was auto-locking every 30 minutes all morning, I killed the "LockScreenContentServer.exe" process and was careful not to change anything else. My 30-minute auto lock cycle was broken.

Microsoft claims that this bug was identified and fixed in Windows 10 1607 "Anniversary Update". Clearly it is still around.

You can fix this by killing the "LockScreenContentServer.exe" task. You can also use a static lock screen image instead of a slideshow or "Windows spotlight" and the issue should not occur. In my case, I have a lock screen slideshow that I love (1000+ family pictures), I'm going to create a scheduled task that fires on system unlock that kills any running instances of "LockScreenContentServer.exe" just to be sure.

 

Seems to me that Power Settings (and in some cases Personalized Settings) would also affect how things run on a normal basis. Personally I have 'em all set to Never or Off, be it Hard Drive or any other setting related to how the PC shuts itself down or off or cycles itself to another mode.
When I had this issue it was a malware that back-doored me thru an application that I was using via the Firewall. Removing that application (in this case it was PunkBuster) stopped that random going to the Lock Screen regardless of what I was doing. Just sayin'.