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When one locks the PC using Windows-L it activates a screen which shows account name and the text 'Locked'. There is also a "Switch User" button which open user selection screen.

What I would like to, is show directly the user selection screen when one locks the PC. This was easy to do with XP but how can it be achieved on Seven?

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Which version of window's 7? Is it joined to a domain? My W7-Enterprise on a domain has a "Switch User" button when I lock the screen. – Zypher Jan 29 '10 at 18:42
W7 Ultimate. It's not on a domain. As I wrote, there is a button, but I want Windows to show the switch screen without clicking any buttons. – tputkonen Jan 29 '10 at 18:58
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migrated from serverfault.com Jan 29 '10 at 18:55

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2 Answers

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The Win+L is a system assigned hotkey and there's no option to disable it. This means there's no way for an application to detect it, unless you use a low-level global keyboard hook (WH_KEYBOARD_LL).

More information at this SO post here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/301053/re-assign-override-hotkey-win-l-to-lock-windows

The workaround would be to create a shortcut on your desktop that points to the User Selection page and assign a different hotkey to it:

  1. Create a new shortcut on your desktop
  2. Paste the following path in the Location box: C:\Windows\System32\tsdiscon.exe
  3. After creating the shortcut, right-click the new shortcut and select Properties
  4. In the Shortcut key box, enter a keyboard shortcut
  5. Click OK
  6. Test the results
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Thanks! I really hate it that they changed the behavior. I'll have to copy the shortcut now to all users. – tputkonen Jan 30 '10 at 7:22
You can copy a shortcut into C:\Users\Public\Desktop, this will automatically put it on every user's desktop – geotavros May 16 '11 at 9:34
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up vote 0 down vote

My queries on this issue (I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate) resulted in a general consensus of "it's how Windows uses that shortcut, it can't be changed".

It's been a few weeks since I was searching, so maybe something new has turned up, but so far as I know you can't change that behavior.

I'll wait for people to prove me wrong now....

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