How To: Lock Your Windows Desktop Without Hiding It



Windows: The Windows+L shortcut is a handy for quickly password-protecting your machine, but if you want to lock it while keeping an eye on your desktop, ClearLock will lock your desktop with a transparent layer so you can see what's going on.
Whether you've got rambunctious kids, immature friends or household pets that like to use your keyboard as a bed, locking your computer is always a good idea. Unfortunately, Windows' built-in locking method prevents you from seeing your desktop, meaning you can't keep an eye on your BitTorrent downloads, watch your movie, or enjoy the iTunes visualizer when your computer's locked. ClearLock fixes that by locking your computer transparently, so you can see your desktop, but not click on anything until you enter your password.
Just fire up the app, turn down your volume (it's startup sound is a bit obnoxious), and type in your password. Now, whenever you launch the app, it'll lock your screen. The password window will go away after a few seconds and you'll have a fully visible, but locked computer. Hit the link to check it out.
Update: As many of you have pointed out, the software does have one quirk where it doesn't lock multiple monitors at once. So if you're rocking a dual monitor setup, this may not be the easiest way to go.
ClearLock is a free download for Windows only.

7 comments:

Yuri Testikov said... at 6 February 2011 at 15:18

Pretty legit shortcut, going to follow.

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Anonymous said... at 6 February 2011 at 17:24

Interesting. That might get annoying after a while though.

Raw said... at 6 February 2011 at 18:54

Nice tip, thanks!

Juno said... at 6 February 2011 at 19:11

nice. i need to download that.

Dania said... at 6 February 2011 at 20:01

thank you for the useful tip. look forward to learning more! following

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Jordan said... at 7 February 2011 at 04:54

nice info this is really good to know


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Disser2 said... at 7 February 2011 at 16:03

nice work mate! gotta try this out

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