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Disable Lock Screen in Windows 11 With Group Policy

If you have to dismiss the lock screen every time you lock your PC, you can use a policy to skip it. To skip that extra step after locking your PC, set Do not display the lock screen to Enabled.

Problems this setup can solve

  • Every time I lock my PC I have to dismiss the lock screen before I can sign in, and I want to skip it.
  • I cannot find a switch in the Settings app that removes the lock screen, so I am looking for a policy.
  • I manage several shared or kiosk-style PCs and want the sign-in tile to show right away on all of them.

Before you start

The policy is set under Computer Configuration, so it applies to the whole PC rather than to a single user.

This setting applies to Windows Pro, Enterprise, Education, and IoT Enterprise editions.

Check the CTRL+ALT+DEL condition first

If your PC requires CTRL+ALT+DEL at sign-in, do not expect this policy to remove the lock screen. Check how the PC is set up before applying the policy.

Steps

  1. Press Win + R and run gpedit.msc.
  2. Under Computer Configuration, go to Computer Configuration › Administrative Templates › Control Panel › Personalization and open the Do not display the lock screen setting.
  3. Set the status to Enabled.
  4. Save the setting.
  5. Open Command Prompt as administrator and run this command to apply the policy right away:
gpupdate /force
  1. Lock the PC with Win + L.
  2. Check that the user tile appears instead of the lock screen. If it does not, sign out and sign back in, or restart the PC, and try again.

You can read more about the policy on the Do not display the lock screen page.

Apply it with the registry

If you do not use the Group Policy Editor, you can apply the same setting through the registry. On the registry value page, copy one of the blocks: the .reg file, the CMD commands, or the PowerShell commands. Apply the selected block as a whole.

Which value does what

The setting is worded negatively, so it is easy to mix up the effect of each value:

  • Enabled skips the lock screen and takes users directly to the user tile.
  • Disabled keeps the lock screen, which users dismiss by touch, keyboard, or dragging with the mouse.
  • With Not Configured, no policy is set; this is the default.

Other lock screen policies are not the same

Two other policies in the same Personalization area control the lock screen and sign-in image. One prevents users from changing the image. The other forces a specific default image and is available only on Enterprise, Education, and Server editions. Neither policy removes the lock screen. To skip it, use the policy covered in this article.

How to undo it

To restore the default behavior, set the policy to Not Configured and run gpupdate /force.

Cautions

  • Users who do not need CTRL+ALT+DEL on that PC lose the lock screen.
  • Test the sign-in flow on each PC before applying the policy more broadly.
  • Write down which PCs you changed so that you know where to set the policy back to Not Configured later.

This article is based on the Windows 11 version 26H2 (OS build 26300) policy templates (published 2026-09-29).

References