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At my current employer, there is a policy that is pushed out daily that includes a setting that forces the display on the computer to never go into sleep mode (on Mac that is System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Turn Display Off After, and I forget the exact name in Windows, but also under energy settings). I have experienced this on both the Windows platform and the Mac platform leading me to conclude that this was an intentional decision. Note that I am talking about having the monitor go into a power-saving, display off mode, not locking the screen, which is (sensibly) set to a small number of minutes.

Are there specific security or hardware management issues in Windows or Mac OS X that would require forcing a monitor to always remain powered on (albeit with a screen saver running)? My own experience suggests that allowing the screen to power down does not interfere with properly locking the system either manually or via the screensaver timeout setting.

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    How could we possibly know why your company implemented such a policy?!?
    – Massimo
    Feb 11, 2021 at 15:29
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    We are also not a substitute for your IT department, and this question can only really be answered by them.
    – Michael Hampton
    Feb 11, 2021 at 15:32
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    I don't want to know why my company specifically did it. I'm looking for reasons why such a policy might be desired. Something like a password complexity policy, I know general reasons for even if I don't know the specific reasons my employer used to arrive at their policy. I haven't been able to think of or find any reasonable explanations. In very large corporations (30K+ employees) it can be impossible to get an explanation. I'm trying to research possible 'why's to make sure there isn't a legitimate security reason before I push back on it.
    – Colin Young
    Feb 11, 2021 at 18:23
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    Don't be surprised if, at the end of your research, you discover the source of this policy to be "Rule 57: Because we've always done it that way". Large companies are certainly not immune to this.
    – Brandon Xavier
    Feb 12, 2021 at 6:19

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Consider the following:

  • If the PC never goes to sleep, then it is always accessible for things like network scans/automated updates/remote management. There are better ways to handle this, but keeping the PC on is easy.

  • There are kiosk or shared machines that need to stay on all the time, and it was easier to apply the policy to all PCs.

  • Convenience: Some VIP got really tired of waking up his/her computer and demanded all computers stay on all the time.

  • Make some extra cash mining crypto off-hours

There's no way to know why your company did it except to ask around. I've never seen it myself, but I found people asking how, so there's a need out there.

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  • I have been asking around, but nobody I can reach can answer. I've also seen requests online asking how, but they've all been several years old, and it seemed more appropriate to ask here than to ask a random stranger on the internet why they wanted to do that. Your kiosk suggestion seems the most reasonable, and the crypto mining seems very unlikely with our security team who are very on-the-ball
    – Colin Young
    Feb 11, 2021 at 18:27
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    Here's a cynical, but quite plausible explanation: 15 years or so ago, Corp IT Nitwit #1 hears about security problems with certain x-window screensavers and figures "if we never let screens shut off, we don't have to worry about that!". Corp IT Nitwit #2 overhears only "screensavers . . . not . . . secure" around the water cooler and proceeds to implement various methods of disabling ALL screensavers on all platforms. Poorly thought out policy becomes de facto company standard.
    – Brandon Xavier
    Feb 12, 2021 at 6:53

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