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Is there a way to have the screensaver activate and wait a few seconds before going into a locked state under Windows 8?

It's really annoying that I need to put in my password when I'm thinking at my desk and then the screensaver goes off forcing me to type in my password again. I just want to have time to realize that the screensaver is going off and to hit a key to stopping it from locking my screen.

I've tried this solution under Lock Screen after screensaver starts + delay, but it didn't work under Windows 8. Other solutions I've seen here just say to extend the screensaver timeout, which is not what I want.

To reiterate: I just want to delay the lock so if I'm at my desk, I can quickly hit the Ctrl key or something to abort the locking of my computer.

EDIT:

Ok, there is a way through the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\some-guid-1\some-guid-2] => "ACSettingIndex"=dword:000000b4

sets the timeout of the power settings to 3 min or 180 (i.e. 0xb4) sec. Unfortunately, I can't find an equivalent for the screensaver. The some-guid-1 and some-guid-2 are probably related to the name of the power setting.

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There's two separate settings to manipulate here.

The first is your screen saver. When you're configuring its timeout/delay, there's a checkbox to "On resume, display logon screen"; simply uncheck that, and the screen saver will not trigger the need to input your password -- interrupting it will quite simply return you to where you were, no questions asked.

Then, go into your power settings (conveniently linked in the box below your screen saver settings) and, for your active profile, configure the "Turn off the display" setting to the amount of time you want to wait before your password becomes required.

Note that these two are separate settings, but both are based on your idle time -- that is, if you set your screen saver for 5 minutes, and the display turn off for 10 minutes, your display will turn off 5 minutes after your screen saver turns on; conversely, if you were to set the latter for 3 minutes instead, you would never see your screen saver because your display would turn off before the screen saver came on!

Unfortunately this doesn't meet your criteria of only a few seconds (especially with the relatively limited options for the second setting), but if you were to set your screen saver for 4 minutes and your display power off for 5 minutes, well, under some definitions of "a few" 60 seconds might qualify. Pretty sure this is the best you'll get without installing third-party applications.

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  • Well, this is interesting, but I think that there is a policy setting by my company which overrides the Screen Saver's wait time. Any other suggestions?
    – Adrian
    Apr 4, 2014 at 18:13
  • Well if you can't adjust the screen saver's time, can you still turn off its "ask for password" option and then set the "Turn off the display" setting for the following minute or something?
    – Kromey
    Apr 4, 2014 at 18:48
  • Actually, it wasn't a policy setting. I had youtube running in the background. Found that out via powercfg -requests. Though I would prefer if I had second granularity. Is there any way of doing this?
    – Adrian
    Apr 4, 2014 at 19:05
  • I don't think so, no -- I'm pretty sure this is the best you're going to get, at best a 60-second delay between screen saver coming on, and needing to enter your password...
    – Kromey
    Apr 4, 2014 at 19:23
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    Ok, there is a way through the registry. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\ some-guid-1 \ some-guid-2 ] => "ACSettingIndex"=dword:000000b4 sets the timeout of the power settings to 3 min or 180(0xb4) sec. Unfortunately, I can't find an equivalent for the screensaver. The some-guid-1 and some-guid-2 are probably related to the name of the power setting.
    – Adrian
    Apr 4, 2014 at 20:35

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