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How can I configure the grace period that Windows uses for password-protected screen savers?
John Savill
October 8, 2002
1 Min Read
A. By default, when you activate a password-protected screen saver, Windows provides a brief grace period during which keyboard and mouse activity will stop the screen saver and let you access the system without having to enter the password. To modify this grace period, perform the following steps:
Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon registry subkey.
From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.
Enter a name of ScreenSaverGracePeriod, then press Enter.
Double-click the new value, set the "Value data" to the number of seconds (from 0 to 2,147,483) that you want to use for the grace period, set the Base type to decimal, then click OK.
Restart the machine for the change to take effect.
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