Windows XP Idle Timeout to Login 1

[Alphonzo]

After a period of inactivity XP switches back to the login screen. Does anyone know how to how to lengthen this period? I have a password and it’s a pain to type in every 5 or 10 minutes. I really don’t want disable the password so I’d like to lengthen the timeout.

 

[bcastner]

right-click a blank area of the desktop, Properties, Screensaver, and disable the password protection on the screensaver.

 

[Alphonzo]

I don't have any screen savers enabled. I'm talking about the Welcome Screen that displays the available users. XP reverts to this screen after a period of inactivity and I really don’t want XP to do this. Alternatively I’d like to extend the period this timeout happens.

 

[bcastner]

The only time this would happen is if in the screensaver tab you have enabled password protection to lock the workstation after a specified timeout.

 

[bcastner]

In Regedit go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Check the following REG_SZ values:

ScreenSaveActive = 1 (this for your problem should be 0)
ScreenSaverIsSecure = 1 (set to 0)
ScreenSaveTimeOut = 600 (does not matter if above is 0)

If no one has logged on yet, or all users logged out:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
ScreenSaveActive = 1 (this for your problem should be 0)
ScreenSaverIsSecure = 1 (set to 0)

If the keys do not exist, make new REG_SZ values.

 

[Alphonzo]

Thanks! I initially changed one of the, I think 4, occurrences of "ScreenSaveActive" to 0. That did not work so I changed all of the "ScreenSaveTimeout" to 1200. Apparently the number is in seconds. After rebooting, I'm not sure a reboot is necessary; the timeout is now doubled to 20 minutes. I guess if I changed all of the instances of "ScreenSaveActive" to 0 the timeout would stop all together. Thanks again for the help.

 

[bcastner]

I am not sure about 4 instances.

Yes the value is in seconds (600=10 minutes)

Set the two values in the two registy locations I indicated above to zero (0), and you should not be bothered again.

Bill