HTC HD2 Screen Lock – Prompt For PIN Every Time Phone Turned On Fix

Anyone who has an HTC HD2 mobile phone and syncs it to an Exchange Server that forces a PIN for security reasons has probably been frustrated as much as I have with having to key in the PIN every single time the phone is turned on.

Having used numerous HTC mobile phones over the past 6 or 7 years, and not having had this problem with any of their phones before, even when connected to an Exchange Server, I spoke to HTC about the issue and left the problem with them to hopefully find a fix and allow me to use my phone properly.

Well, that was in early August when I got back from holiday.

It is now September 23rd and having not heard a peep out of HTC, decided to chase them up and see what progress they had made.

After putting the phone down to HTC after one conversation, they suggested that I call my airtime provider (O2) as the software on the phone was an O2 branded version and that they must have changed something to cause the problem. Well, my business partner has an O2 HTC HD2 phone and it came from O2 and does not have the O2 branding all over it and it has the same problem, so a further call to HTC to discount O2 as the root of the problem left them a little bit perplexed, but me even more annoyed because I had to explain myself again to the support person at the other end of the phone.

One support guy escalated the call to a 2nd line person who basically advised me the fix was to Hard Reset the phone (which I had already done, so had my business partner, and it was no better). Well, that was useful advice!

To cut a long story short, after several phone calls to different HTC support staff, each time having to explain the problem to them, which they clearly did not understand and after much persuasion that it was not an Exchange issue, not an issue with the settings on the phone, but that the settings were simply getting ignored, I finally spoke to one person there who basically said that they were not going to do anything about it because it was not a problem, more like a “Security Feature”! Well – it is a Security Feature that I can do without.

After the final phone call, I rang O2 and asked if they could change my handset to one that worked. They advised me that I was not able to upgrade (having just done so), and could not change phones, so I was stuck with the annoying handset until next time renewal was due (10 months away). At that point, I asked to be put back onto an iPhone tariff and will continue to use the iPhone.

Not wanting to let this problem go, I surfed the web and after scouring through some forums, decided that I was not alone in having this problem, music to my ears, but no doubt something that HTC won’t want to hear, or maybe that should be ‘couldn’t care less’?

Buried within one forum was a Registry Tweak that could be made which looked like it might solve the problem and one user reported that it had worked for them (hurrah!).

So, I downloaded CERegEditor and installed it, then hooked up my HD2 via the USB cable and opened up the registry.

The suggested key to change / add was:

HKCU\ControlPanel\Keybd REG_DWORD DeviceLockWhenSuspend – Value = 0

After adding that key, because it was not already present, soft resetting my phone and testing the phone lock timeout, the phone did not ask me for the PIN every time I turned the phone on. Eureka!

So – tomorrow I may call HTC and advise them of the ‘fix’ to the problem they don’t seem to care about and hopefully they will add this to future ROM versions so that others may stop being as annoyed as I was about this little issue that seems to be frustrating the life out of every HTC HD2 owner.

One drawback of this registry “tweak” is that the phone will start working in your pocket as there now i sno lock facility. This was a minor setback and can be fixed by installing the following free App:

Slide To Unlock 2

Now I don’t get annoyed by having to enter the PIN EVERY time I try to use my phone and I can lock the screen when it is is my pocket.

If you have read this far – please take the poll below so that I can see if I am alone in being annoyed with HTC or not.

Thanks

Alan