Disable/Enable Lock Workstation Functionality in Windows 7

In almost every version of Microsoft's Windows operating system whenever Windows + L key is pressed the computer gets locked and users are not able to interact with the operating system anyhow. The operating system can only be unlocked by providing the password of the user account which was logged on before it was locked. The computer can also be unlocked by providing the password of the administrator account. In production environments this feature help organizations in great deal as far as security is concerned. However in home environments this feature is not required and therefore can be disabled by the administrators of the computers. Although it is strongly recommended that the feature should NOT be disabled at all but still if users want to play around with the operating system or just want to get familiar with the registry they can follow the steps given below to disable it:

1.      Logon to Windows 7 computer with the account that is administrator privileges.

2.      Click on Start button and from the available menu in the search box type REGEDIT and press the enter key.

3.      On Windows Registry Editor box from the left of the locate

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem.

4.      On the right pane right-click anywhere in the blank area and click on New option.

5.      From the available options click on DWORD (32-bit) Value and specify DisableLockWorkstationas the new name of the key.

6.      Double-click on the newly created key and in Value data field specify its value as 1 to disable the feature. (You can re-enable this anytime by specifying the value as 0).

7.      Once done click on Ok button and close all the opened boxes.

8.      If required restart your computer.