Unlike Windows 7, Windows 8 takes more time to log you in and if your Windows 8 user account is protected by a local password or through your Windows live password, the procedure is 3 step. First, you are shown the Windows 8 lock screen, then the Windows 8 login screen and after you have keyed in your username and password, you are shown the Windows 8 metro start screen. Then you have to hit the “Desktop” icon on the start screen before you can actually begin your work.

If you don’t like all this mess and want to disable Windows 8 metro start screen or permanently turn off the lock screen of Windows 8, this guide will help you achieve just that. Following this guide, you will be able to directly open Windows 8 desktop right after your computer boots, without having to go through all the aforesaid steps, one after another.

Disable Windows 8 Lock Screen and Login Screen

First things first. We will now  focus on how to completely disable Windows 8 Log-in screen.

1. First, go to Windows 8 metro start screen, type “netplwiz” and hit “Enter”.

2. Left click the “netplwiz” icon and this will open the following window on your Windows 8 desktop:

3. Now choose the user account for which you want to disable the login screen and want Windows to auto log-in without you having to key in the username or password.

4. If your current Windows 8 installation has multiple users, remember to “uncheck” the box  “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer”

5. Next hit “Apply” then ” OK”.

You will be asked to put your existing password for confirmation and you are done with disabling Windows 8 lock screen and login screen.

To check how it works, reboot your computer and wait until Windows will directly take you to the Metro start screen, after bypassing the default lock screen and the Log-in screen.

Now if you like to go back to your good old  log-in page, simply go through the same procedure and check the option “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer” .

Please note that the “netplwiz” command also works on earlier versions of windows e.g Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP and the exact same procedure can be used to disable the login screen of Windows 7 or Windows Vista, for example.

Disable Windows 8 Metro Start Screen

Now that you have turned off Windows 8 lock screen and removed Windows 8 login screen, we will now focus on how to disable Metro start screen in Windows 8.

1. Go to C:\Users\user profile\App Data\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup” .

If you are unable to open this folder, there is a chance that “Folder options” for this folder is set to “Don’t show hidden files, folders or drive”. Change the setting to “Show hidden folders, files or drive”. Then you can open the “Startup” folder for your user account.

2. After you have reached the “Startup” folder, right click on it to create a shortcut as shown below:

3. Enter “C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{3080F90D-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}” in the location field of the shortcut as shown below:

4. You are done.

Now when you boot Windows 8, this shortcut will be executed and the system will directly log on to Windows 8 desktop. The metro start screen is temporarily disabled, you can always revert back by deleting the above shortcut from the “Startup” folder of your Windows 8 user account.

Related tip: Add shutdown and restart tiles in Windows 8 metro start screen.