Shut Down, Sleep, Or Leave On Your Pc Overnight?

[Khandro]

Which do you do? My PC (Widows 10) is on from first thing in the morning until late at night when I switch it off. But this morning something unusual happened which gave me a bad moment; instead of opening on my desk-top it stuck on the pretty picture and asked for my password and I haven't a clue what it is. I tried my usual ones and nothing worked, 'Change Password' needed a flash player and no way to install it from there.

I could see no was no of getting either access or closing down, so I simply disconnected the power and when I re-started it opened OK. It seems to change the password requires you to know the present one, so I'm thinking I shall leave it on overnight too.

An thoughts please?

[dannyk13]

Hibernate.

[gingejbee]

None of your suggestions....hibernate overnight.

[Prudie]

Laptop in Win 10 and I just shut the lid. I only shut down if either I'm going away on holiday or occasionally to correct a 'blip'. However it was originally set up with password entry so I have to put that in every time I come to use it and get the pretty picture, several times a day.

[Togo]

If it was set up without a password in the first instance just pressing the "enter" key will launch it. If there has been an overnight upgrade it is possible that the desktop has done a full shut down as part of the process. If I were you I would, whilst you are up and running OK, go into your personal settings and put in a password. If it is nicked during a burglar, say, or switched on in your absence anyone can access your files.

[Togo]

Oh to answer your original question. I log out of all my accounts including the Microsoft personal account, close all apps, and then let all my machines conduct a controlled shut down. I leave the desktop plugged into the mains and the mains on.

[pauln90]

I recently had to replace my hard drive and reinstall windows and the password option suddenly appeared. the password required is your microsoft account password ( if indeed you ever had one)

I kept the password option and use a pin to gain access, this is only to stop my young grandsons playing around.

A suggestion I found to disable the password was

Open Settings app by clicking its icon in Start menu or pressing Windows logo + I keyboard shortcut.
Click on Accounts.
Click Sign-in options in the left hand side, and then select Never for the “Require sign-in” option if you want to stop Windows 10 from asking for password after it wakes up from sleep.

The alternative seems to be to set up another user account without a password option.

[-SharonA-]

I always shut down. Cannot be good to leave in sleep mode.

[Mamyalynne]

Hibernation and Sleep are different.

[Khandro]

Thanks all.

pauln90; I can't see the “Require sign-in / never” options. There is a 'change password', but as I said in the OP, you need to know your existing one to change it.

[marval]

Ours always get shut down and unplugged overnight.

[dannyk13]

I hibernate and shut down.

[ummmm]

With my laptop I tend to just shut the lid. I occasionally shut it down as that's when it tends to do it's updates.

[Baldric]

We have a shared Lappy in the kitchen that is on 24/7 and left on 'Sleep' setting overnight.

[Togo]

Khandro you will get the "change password" option even if you have never set one for your Microsoft user account. It just means that you can now enter one. See 16.45

[Old_Geezer]

Leave it. It decides what to do next.
Wrird password requests can happen whether you are there or not. When tech screws up, recycle the power.

[Peter Pedant]

// My PC (Widows 10)// you may be on your own with that.
( widows see)

try to get back to the original window
control alt delete may do it

or close down and restart

doing a hard reset - pressing off until it goes off
the computer doesnt really like
and you may corrupt unbacked up files

I use sleep a lot
and restart about once a month

[Buenchico]

If you're sure that you've never set a password on your computer, simply leaving the field blank should be all that you need to do.

If you enter an incorrect password you should then see, below the password field, "show password hint". Clicking on that should provide you with the reminder that you set up when you created your password.

[Peter Pedant]

dont recommend no password
you really need one
in case of 'loss'
altho it is to protect yourself and financial info
if you have someone else's name on it [- their data]- you are probably required to safeguard the info
and having disabled a pssword isnt kinda doing that

[diddlydo]

I never shut my laptop down - just close the lid. Sometimes I restart it when certain progs go a bit weird which seems to sort it out. Never been asked for a password and wouldn't have the foggiest.

[TonyV]

I want use any windows software after 7, IMO that's when software ri