Hide the Power Button on the Windows Sign-in Screen

Open Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System, set the DWORD shutdownwithoutlogon to 0, and restart. The power button disappears from the sign-in screen.

Now the part to read before you do it: this does not stop anybody turning the computer off. They hold the physical button for four seconds instead.

What you are removing is the clean way to shut down. The person who would have clicked a button and let Windows close properly now cuts the power mid-thought — and if an update happens to be installing, that is one of the reliable ways to leave a machine needing repair.

Which does not make the setting useless. It makes it a tool against accidents rather than against people, and it is genuinely good at that job. On a shared desk, a reception PC or a machine in a classroom, it stops someone shutting down a computer that is not theirs because they assumed it was the polite thing to do.

Set it for that reason and it earns its place. Set it expecting security and it will disappoint you in a way that costs somebody their unsaved work.

The Setting That Made the Problem Worse

A small accountancy office asked Jake to stop staff shutting down the shared machine in the back room. It ran overnight backups and long report jobs, and roughly once a fortnight somebody heading home would see it sitting at the sign-in screen, decide it had been left on by mistake, and helpfully turn it off.

Hiding the power button was a sensible response, and Jake set it.

It worked for about six weeks. Then somebody stayed late, found the machine at the sign-in screen with the screen refusing to do anything useful, and did what people do when a computer will not turn off politely: held the power button until it went dark.

Windows had been most of the way through installing an update. The next morning it came up into recovery, and the day started with a repair instead of a backup.

Ethan's read on it: "The setting did exactly what it says. The mistake was ours for thinking a hidden button removes the intent — it only removes the safe way to act on it. We took away the polite exit and left the emergency one, then acted surprised when somebody used the emergency one."

What the office needed alongside it was a sign on the monitor and thirty seconds of explanation to four people. They got both the following week, and the problem has not recurred since — but the fortnightly shutdown was never really a technical problem, and the technical fix on its own made the consequences bigger rather than smaller.

What It Prevents, and What It Does Not

The policy governs one on-screen control on one screen. Being precise about its reach is what stops it being trusted for things it cannot do.

Way to turn the machine off	Blocked by this policy?
Power button on the sign-in screen	Yes — that is the whole effect
Power button on the lock screen	Yes — same control, same policy
Holding the physical power button	No — and this is the one people use next
Pulling the plug or the battery	No
Start menu, once signed in	No — unaffected for signed-in users
A remote or scheduled shutdown	No

Read rows one and three together, because they are the whole argument. You have closed the door that shuts Windows down properly and left open the one that does not.

Against somebody who simply did not think, that trade is clearly worth making — they will not escalate to holding a button, they will shrug and leave. Against somebody who has decided the machine should be off, you have changed nothing except the method, and made the outcome worse.

Who This Is Genuinely For

There is a real audience for this setting, and it is narrower than the search volume suggests.

Shared and public machines. A reception desk, a library terminal, a classroom, a machine in a workshop that several people pass. This is what the policy was designed for, and it is why so many managed environments set it as standard.

Machines doing unattended work. Overnight backups, long renders, anything where an interruption costs real time. The office in the cold open was a fair example, even if the fix needed company.

Households with small children. A power button at eye level on a screen that appears whenever the machine is idle is an invitation, and the child is not being naughty by accepting it.

It is the wrong tool for a personal laptop nobody else touches, where it only makes your own life slightly harder. It is also the wrong tool if what worries you is somebody reading your files, because it does nothing whatsoever about that — a sign-in you cannot get past and encryption on the disk are the things that address it.

Setting It: the Registry Method

This works on every edition including Home, and it takes about a minute. You need an administrator account.

1. Press Windows + R, type regedit, press Enter and accept the prompt.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
3. Find the DWORD named shutdownwithoutlogon in the right pane. Unlike many registry tweaks, this one normally already exists — it is a standard part of Windows and it is set to 1.
4. Double-click it and change the value data to 0. Click OK.
5. Restart, or sign out and back in. The sign-in screen reads this when it starts, so nothing changes until then.

If the value genuinely is not there, create it as a DWORD (32-bit) Value with that exact name and set it to 0. The spelling has no capital letters and no spaces, and Windows will not warn you if you get it wrong — the value simply sits there being ignored, which looks exactly like the change not working.

That last point is the most common reason people conclude this does not work. A mistyped value name and an unrestarted machine produce the same symptom, and both are silent.

The Local Security Policy Route, on Pro and Enterprise

If you have Windows Pro or Enterprise, use this instead. It reaches the same registry value, and it names the setting in plain language so anyone finding it later can tell what it does and why.

Press Windows + R, type secpol.msc, press Enter. Go to Local Policies → Security Options and find the entry named Shutdown: Allow system to be shut down without having to log on. Set it to Disabled and restart.

The wording repays a moment's attention, because it is the clearest description of what you are actually doing. You are not hiding a button for cosmetic reasons — you are withdrawing permission to shut the system down without authenticating. That framing also explains why it appears under security options rather than under personalization.

Prefer this route when you have it. A colleague who inherits the machine and wonders where the button went will find a named policy with a description, rather than a bare registry value that means nothing without a search engine. On a machine other people will maintain, that difference is worth more than the minute it saves you.

If secpol.msc reports that Windows cannot find it, you are on Home, which does not include the console. The registry method above is the equivalent and loses nothing.

If Your Button Vanished and You Did Not Do This

Plenty of people arrive at this subject from the opposite direction. The power button is gone from your sign-in screen, you never touched a policy, and you want it back.

That is this same setting, applied by something other than you, and it is worth knowing the usual suspects.

• A work or school machine. Almost always deliberate, almost always part of a shared-PC configuration, and it will be reapplied within hours if you change it locally. Ask rather than edit.
• An optimizer or privacy tool. Several bundle this policy into a group of tweaks applied together, with nothing in the interface naming it individually.
• A security template applied at some point in the machine's life, often by whoever set it up originally.
• A shared family PC where somebody else with an administrator account made the change and forgot to mention it.

Our guide to the power button missing from the Windows sign-in screen covers that direction properly, including what to do when the value keeps coming back. The two pages are deliberate mirrors of one another — one policy, two entirely different reasons to be reading about it.

If the Real Goal Is Something Else

People arrive at this setting having decided it is the answer, and often something else fits their actual worry better. It is worth checking which row you are in before you change anything.

What you actually want	The tool that fits
Nobody shuts it down by accident	This policy — you are in the right place
Nobody reads my files	Disk encryption and a real sign-in
Nobody installs things	A standard user account, not an administrator one
Nobody sees my email address at login	The separate sign-in privacy setting
It should lock when I walk away	A screen timeout with sign-in required
The extra picture screen annoys me	The lock screen policy, a different setting entirely

Row four has its own guide — hiding your email address on the sign-in screen — and it is the one people are most often surprised to learn is separate. Row six is covered in our guide to disabling the lock screen, which is a different screen again.

Ethan's rule of thumb for this whole area: "Every one of those rows is a different setting in a different part of Windows, and they all get described as 'securing the login screen.' If you cannot say in one sentence which specific thing you are stopping, you will end up changing four settings and getting the one you wanted by accident."

Putting It Back

Reversing this is genuinely simple, and it returns the machine to how Windows ships rather than to some other custom state.

1. Open regedit and return to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
2. Set shutdownwithoutlogon back to 1.
3. Or, on Pro and Enterprise, set the Local Security Policy entry back to Enabled.
4. Restart or sign out and back in.

Do not delete the value instead of setting it to 1. It is a standard part of a Windows installation rather than something you created, and while removing it usually produces the default behavior anyway, leaving it in place at its normal value is the tidier outcome and the one another administrator will expect to find.

If you set this on a machine other people use, tell them you have reversed it. The whole reason the office in the cold open ended up in recovery was that four people had quietly adapted to a computer that could not be turned off, and nobody had told them anything about it in either direction.

When It Does Not Hold

Three situations account for nearly every report of this setting not working, and none of them means the method is wrong.

Nothing changed at all. Almost always the restart. The sign-in screen reads this policy as it starts, so the button stays until the session is rebuilt. Sign out and back in before concluding anything.

The value name is subtly wrong. It is shutdownwithoutlogon, one word, no capitals. A value called ShutdownWithoutLogon that you created by hand will sit in the registry looking correct and doing nothing at all, because it is not the name Windows reads.

It reverts within hours, repeatedly. That is a managed machine with a policy being reapplied from elsewhere, and it is not something to keep fighting. Someone is accountable for that setting, they have set it deliberately, and repeatedly undoing a security policy on a work computer is the sort of thing that gets noticed and asked about. Ask instead.

One more that is not a failure: the button is still there for you but gone for a colleague, or the reverse. Check you are both looking at the same screen — the sign-in screen and the lock screen are covered, the Start menu once signed in is not, and people describe all three as "the power button."

What This Page Said Before, and What It Covers Now

The version published in October 2016 gave the registry steps and stopped. The steps were accurate then and are accurate now. What it never said was what the setting does not do — and on this particular subject that omission matters more than usual, because the gap between what people expect it to prevent and what it prevents is where the harm lives.

Somebody reading the original could reasonably have come away believing they had stopped people turning a machine off. They had stopped people turning it off tidily.

New here: what the policy blocks and what it leaves wide open, who it genuinely suits, the Local Security Policy route and why it is the better one when you have it, the mirror case for readers whose button vanished without them touching anything, a table matching the real goal to the right tool, and the two silent reasons the change appears not to work.

Your Questions, Answered Straight

How do I hide the power button on the Windows sign-in screen?

Open Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System, and set the DWORD named shutdownwithoutlogon to 0. Restart. The button disappears from the sign-in screen for everyone, and the same setting exists in Local Security Policy on Pro and Enterprise.

Does hiding the power button stop people turning the computer off?

No, and this is the part worth understanding first. Anyone can still hold the physical power button for a few seconds and cut it dead. What you remove is the clean, orderly shutdown, so a determined person now uses the messier method instead.

What is this setting actually good for then?

Preventing accidents rather than preventing people. On a shared or public machine it stops someone shutting down a computer that is not theirs because they assumed they should, and it stops a misclick during sign-in. Those are common and it handles them well.

Where is this setting on Windows Pro?

Run secpol.msc and go to Local Policies, then Security Options. The entry is called Shutdown: Allow system to be shut down without having to log on. Set it to Disabled and the button disappears. It writes the same registry value the manual method sets.

Can I do this on Windows Home?

Yes, through the registry. Windows Home does not include the Local Security Policy console, but the policy console is only a front end for that same registry value, so editing it directly gives an identical result with nothing lost.

My power button disappeared and I did not do this. What happened?

Something else set the same policy, and on a work or school machine that is almost always deliberate. Shared-PC configurations set it as standard. If the machine is yours, an optimizer tool or a security template may have applied it without saying so.

Does this affect the power button inside Windows once I am signed in?

No. The Start menu power options behave exactly as before for anyone signed in. This policy only governs the sign-in screen and the lock screen, which is where a person who has not authenticated can reach the controls.

Will hiding the button cause problems with updates?

Not by itself, but it can lead to them indirectly. Someone who cannot shut down cleanly may hold the physical button instead, and doing that partway through an update installation is one of the reliable ways to leave Windows in a state that needs repairing.

How do I put the power button back?

Set the same shutdownwithoutlogon value back to 1 and restart, or set the Local Security Policy entry to Enabled. The value is normally 1 on a standard installation, so restoring it returns the machine to how Windows shipped rather than to something unusual.

Is this a good security measure?

It is a small one with a narrow scope. It removes a convenience for people who have not signed in. It does not protect your data, which is what disk encryption and a strong sign-in do, and it should never be the reason anyone feels a shared machine is secured.

Can someone still restart the computer another way?

Yes. The physical button, the mains supply, removing a laptop battery, or an administrator connecting remotely all still work. This policy governs one on-screen control and makes no attempt to be more than that.

Does it hide the button on the lock screen too?

Yes. The lock screen and the sign-in screen share the same power control, so the policy covers both. Anyone who has locked their session and walked away is covered by the same change.

Do I need to restart for the change to apply?

Yes, or sign out and back in. The sign-in screen reads the policy when it starts, so the button stays visible until then even though the registry value is already correct. That delay looks like a failed edit and is not one.

Will a Windows update undo this?

It is a standard security policy value rather than a personalization tweak, so it usually survives updates. If it does revert, check the value still reads 0 before assuming anything else, and reapply it the same way you set it.

Is there a better way to stop people using a shared PC badly?

Usually yes, and it depends what you are preventing. A standard user account, automatic locking, disk encryption or a proper shared-PC configuration each address a real problem. Hiding the power button addresses one small one, and works best alongside those rather than instead of them.

Does this apply to Windows 11 as well as Windows 10?

Yes. The registry path, the value name and the Local Security Policy entry are identical on both. Windows 11 draws the sign-in screen differently, so the button sits in a slightly different place until you remove it.

Worth Reading Next

Revision note. Originally published October 19, 2016 as a short registry walkthrough. Rewritten August 22, 2026 for Windows 11 and Windows 10. The original steps were correct and remain correct; what it never mentioned was the limit of what this policy does, which on this subject is the part that matters — a reader could follow it perfectly and believe they had stopped people turning a machine off, when they had only stopped them doing it tidily. New here: exactly what the policy blocks and what it leaves open, who it genuinely suits, the Local Security Policy route and why it is kinder to whoever maintains the machine next, the mirror case for readers whose button vanished on its own, a table matching the real goal to the right tool, and the two silent reasons the change looks like it failed. If you are setting this on a machine other people use, tell them — the office that taught us this lesson ended up in recovery because four people had quietly adapted to a computer that could not be turned off, and nobody had explained it to any of them.