Lock Settings

• Lock Modes
• Lock Hotkey

Lock Modes

There are various lock modes in the Lock mode dropdown box. They control how to lock the system.

Screen: Lock entire screen without making any changes

Locks the system directly without any changes to the content of the screen, which means all open windows remain open. However, the screen is frozen; i.e., the locked screen is the last snapshot of the screen taken before locking. Any changes that occur during locking (for instance, if an application closes) will not be reflected on the locked screen.

Desktop: Lock desktop and hide all open windows

Shows only your desktop on the locked screen, excluding running programs and the taskbar. Note that the running programs and taskbar are not actually closed or hidden. They are still running in the background; they are just not visible on the locked screen.

Clear: Lock desktop with background color and image

This lock mode doesn't take a snapshot of the screen. It uses the background color and/or image specified in the Background Settings for the locked screen.

App: Lock desktop and run a program or document

Locks the system and launches the specified program or document. The screen is not frozen, allowing the user to view real-time content, although interaction is limited to the specified program or document launched by Desktop Lock.

When this lock mode is selected, an additional "Program / document" section becomes available. You can click 🗁 browse button to choose a program or document, or input the program/document path directly into the input box. You can also drag the target icon onto any window to capture its program path, and use ⏵ test button to verify if the selected program or document can be started successfully.

Desktop Lock supports the following command lines for the lock mode "App":

• Programs -- "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe"
• Documents -- D:\My Document.txt
• Programs with parameters -- %windir%\System32\Notepad.exe D:\My Document.txt
• URLs -- https://www.toplang.com/support/

The guidelines for specifying command line:

• If a program's path contains spaces, it must be enclosed in quotes. However, documents and other file types typically don't need to.
• A path can have environment variables.
• A system program can be invoked by its name alone; for instance, "Notepad.exe" will successfully launch the Windows Notepad.
• A URL must include the scheme at the beginning, such as "https://" or "mailto:".

Additional options for running program/document:

• Run in read-only mode

  Users are prohibited from interacting with the program, meaning that both the keyboard and mouse are disabled even for the program. Users can only view the content of the running program.

• Run maximized

  The program is requested to start with its main window maximized when possible. However, if the target program restricts itself from being maximized (for example, if it has a fixed-size main window), this option will not be effective.

Screensaver: Lock desktop and run a screensaver

Locks the system and starts the specified screensaver. When this lock mode is selected, an additional "Screensaver" section becomes available. You can choose to use the system default screensaver, or select 🗁 Browse in the dropdown box to specify a screensaver.

If your system currently has no active screensaver (Windows 10 default setting), or if the chosen screensaver fails to start, this lock mode falls back to lock mode "Clear": no screensaver will be shown, and background color/image are used in the locking screen.

System: Lock keyboard and mouse only; don't freeze screen

Locks the keyboard and mouse so users can't interact with the computer, but keeps showing the real-time content of the screen.

If you wish to keep certain programs visible on your screen while observing their outputs (for instance, monitoring programs), you can use this lock mode. People are able to see the results of the running programs but aren't able to control those running programs with the mouse or keyboard.

Lock Hotkey

The lock hotkey is a system global hotkey. Once it's specified, you can use it to lock the system anywhere without the need to run the main program of Desktop Lock.

However, please note that all system global hotkeys must be unique. If the lock hotkey you specify here has been used by Windows or other apps, Desktop Lock can't use it. Therefore, the lock hotkey won't work.