I have to sign in after display switches back on.

On my Windows 8.1 computer the power settings are: display off after 10 minutes, computer sleeps after 30 minutes.

When the display is restored by a key click or mouse movement soon after the display goes off, I now have to sign in with my 4 digit p.i.n.

This is subsequent to refreshing the system, it' never happened before.

What must I do to overcome this annoyance so that the system simply goes directly to the desktop as it did before?

 

Password policy is already set to "Password is not required when waking this PC from sleep."

Nothing there about when the display is re-enabled.

 

After signing in (again) a few moments ago, I find that all the titles/names etc beneath the desktop icons are now in black, not white, and they no longer have the shadows :confused

Very strange.

I have, of late, been tempted to ditch this operating system and go back to using XP. I never had half the trouble with it.

 

I don't understand what you mean.

 

Ok, thank you.

I've set the display to never turn off, and the computer to sleep after 4 hours.

The display now turns off after about 6 minutes and when its called from a key click or with the mouse, I have to use my p.i.n.

Any idea what's going on?

 

Have you considered there might be malware on your PC?

 

Yes I have.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Home (Premium) is running all the time. An on-demand scan reveals nothing.

I also have the following anti-nasty software, in no particular order, which I run occasionally.

Emisoft Emergency Kit

Spybot Search & Destroy 1.6.2

EST online scanner

Bitdefender online scanner

F-Secure online scanner

Trend Micro Housecall online scanner

SUPERAntiSpyware online scanner

Trend Micro RootkitBuster

I ran them all, with the exception of the last one, yesterday evening.

One of them, I think it was EST's online scanner, found 30 tracking cookies which were deleted.

Another, I think that was SuperAntiSpyware's scanner, found 3 items, the names of which I have forgotten. They were quarantined and then deleted.

The PC is still behaving as it did before. Desktop icon names are black, and with the power settings as before, display never off, sleep after 4 hours, the display still switches off after a few minutes and I then have to sign in with my p.i.n.

 

Clearly something has come adrift in your Windows. Try running Windows All-in-One Repair at its default settings. It may or may not help with this specific problem but it is a wonderful tool for getting Windows back on track.

 

I changed the settings in the High Performance section, and then pressed "Save changes".

Is that what you mean by the above?

 

Thanks for reminding me about that program. I used that a few times with XP Home and Pro.
It seems to have changed since I last used it. Anyway, I ran it with the default settings, but, despite taking an extraordinarily long time to complete, I can't say that I notice any difference in my machine's behaviour.

As I said above, nothing seems to have changed.

The screen still switches off after a few minutes despite the settings.

What is the difference between the High Performance setting section in Power Options and the "normal" settings ? It hasn't affected what my machine does.

Another thing which might be related to the problem/s I am experiencing is that I can't add a search provider to Internet Explorer to enable me to disable Bing.
I go to Manage add-ons > Search Providers, then I click on Google Search > Add to Internet Explorer, but nothing happens. There's no response or indication from the system that the click has been recognised, and Google Search is not added. I have tried many times.

 

I'm not clear on this. Did you click the blue link at the bottom of this dialog box?

the one that says Find More Search providers
I don't run 8.1 so perhaps your box looks different than IE 11 in Win 7.

I also found this specifically for 8.1

 

Yes, that's correct. The box is identical in 8.1.

I came across that too, but it doesn't work for me.

I think you're right.

 

I have flowed the instructions in the malware removal forum and submitted the relevant logs.

Chaslang says that the problems on this machine don't seem to be due to malware and suggested removing Spybot S&D, Winpatrol and WinPrivacy.

This has been done - no change. I've also run Windows All-in-One Repair again. It too ages to complete, but again I have seen no difference.

I may be heading toward a complete re-installation again