Remove “Password to Unlock Screen” on Android 2.1 Phone

 

You must have noticed that after you’ve set-up your your phone for Exchange email synchronization, the phone starts asking for a password every time you need to unlock the screen. You must have also noticed that the unlock pattern menu has stopped showing up in the Settings>Security menu. This is because, your phone enforces the Exchange server policy of your company. It’s the exchange server that tells your phone to enforce this security policy. It is indeed reasonable to enforce such policy because you are accessing work/company owned information but most of the time, it is very annoying having to type a password on a QWERTY on screen keypad just to unlock the screen. So I decided to look for a solution.

After Goggling around, i found this very interesting thread about developers trying to disable this annoying “feature”. So I gave it a try and it works perfectly fine on my HTC Wildfire.

I’m pretty sure you want to try it too. You may get the app from the Android market. It’s free. Thanks to the developer.

Got this from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=655061.

Just search for Market > Applications > Tools > LockPicker

After installing this, you can now disable the exchange password in a few taps. Your phone now has no screen locks in place. The screen is unlocked just right after “Drag down to Unlock”. Now I wanted to re-enable to original Unlock Pattern just to have a little something to secure the data in your phone. Because you cannot find the lock pattern menu in your phone, you’ll a little help from somewhere else.  After another Google search, I found an app called “LockPattern OnOff” by curvefish. You can find this at the market. Here’s the link http://curvefish.com/widgets/lockpattern-onoff.htm this is actually just a widget that will enable or disable the lock pattern

Just install the app then add the widget anywhere on the screen. Tap the widget, it will prompt you to setup a lock pattern if you have not done it prior to setting up the exchange email. Then you’re done. Try locking and unlocking your phone.

Just a few hours ago, I was wondering “how can I change the lock pattern?”. There is no menu item that you could select to change the lock pattern. The quick answer is “Pretend you forgot your lock pattern”. :) Sounds funny but it works. Just try entering wrong patterns several times until the “Forgot pattern” button shows up. Then just tap this button then enter your Gmail ID and Password, then you’re good to go. Enjoy!