[How To] Hide Computer Locked Window In Windows XP

Trouble:

A good friend of mine is a great photographer and uses her photos as Desktop background. When she locks her Windows computer, the windows Lock Screen appears in the middle of the Monitor, blocking the desktop wallpaper. So she asked me a method by which this lock screen can be hidden. The screen looks like one below

“Computer Locked. This computer is in use and has been locked”

In this article we will show you how you can easily hide this screen to show your wallpaper when you lock the computer.

Fix:

The trick involves two steps:

Step 1:

Modify msgina.dll File

This dll file is the one which has the code for displaying the lock window. To modify the file, you need to download a tool called Resource Hacker and open the file with the tool.

[Download Resource Hacker Here]

Open Resource hacker, and from resource hacker, open file “c:\WINDOWS\system32\msgina.dll”

When you open the file through resource hacker, go to “Dialogue > 1900 > 1033” as shown below:

On the right side text window, delete all the text there and past the following text below which is in blue color:

1900 DIALOGEX 0, 0, 0, 0
STYLE WS_POPUP | WS_VISIBLE
CAPTION ""
LANGUAGE LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US
FONT
0, ""
{
}

After you paste the text, save the file in on the desktop with filename as “msgina.dll” . This is the modified file which will replace the original file in the Step 2.

Step 2:

Replace msgina.dll File

To replace a DLL, there is a small and excellent utility called Replacer. You need to use this utility to replace the original file with the file you saved on the desktop in the above step.

[Download Replacer]

Run the replacer, this will open a command prompt window. Open a My Computer Window and Browse to folder “ C:\Windows\system32” . There you will find a file msgina.dll, just drag and drop the file into the Replacer Window as seen below:

After you drag the file, press enter key on the keyboard. After this, drag and drop the file you saved on the desktop into this window:

Simply press the enter key, It will ask for confirmation to replace the existing DLL file as seen below:

Type “yes” and press enter, it will show a confirmation message as below:

This means the file has been successfully replaced. Now simply restart the computer, and when you lock the computer, you will see only Desktop Wallpaper and no lock screen.

Simply press “ALT + CTRL + DEL” keys together to see the password window to unlock the computer.

Author + Admin: Abhishek Bhatnagar
Hi, I am a Software Engineer by profession and blogger by passion, I write about computer tips and tricks and solutions for computer problems. You can connect with me at twitter or know more about me on www.abhishekbhatnagar.com.