Windows 8 brought us the lock screen, which serves as a bridge between waking your PC from sleep and typing your password. This lives on in an enhanced form in Windows 10.

Some see the lock screen as redundant, but it does have uses, including providing you with information from your apps and allowing you to use Cortana in the Anniversary Update.

However, by default the lock screen only stays active for one minute after turning your PC on or hitting Windows Key + L to lock the system. After one minute, the screen fades out, which will also put any monitors to sleep. Contrasted to the behavior in Windows 7, which kept the lock screen up for as long as your power settings dictated, this is a pain.

If you've customized your lock screen and want to behold it for more than 60 seconds after you've locked you PC, here's a Registy edit that makes it possible. Type regedit into the Start Menu and remember to be careful while in here.

Navigate to the following key:

HKEYLOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Power \ PowerSettings \ 7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99 \ 8EC4B3A5-6868-48c2-BE75-4F3044BE88A7

Once here, right-click on the Attributes key and choose to Modify it; changing the value from 1 to 2. Now, type Power Options into the Start menu. Click your current plan's Change plan settings text, then Change advanced power settings.

Here, you'll find a new setting titled Console lock display off timeout. This is the number of minutes that pass before you lock screen fades out; setting it to 0 means it will never time out. Now you can enjoy your lock screen as long as you like!

If you just ran the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (AU) and are having lock screen or other issues, check out our guide to fixing AU problems.

Are you glad to be able to display your lock screen for a longer time? Let us know what customizations you've added to yours in the comments!

Image Credit: Viktor Hanacek via picjumbo.com