New issue with unlocking my Samsung phone via phone link app on PC

It does help. Unfortunately, there's a hard timeout after 4 hours (or whenever one of the devices goes out of range, or whenever the mood strikes, frankly). At that point, you have to go find the phone again.

I don't think this is entirely Microsoft's problem. My Android phone is real stinky with the other remote software I use to access my phone also.

There is a simple solution to this very annoying problem.

On the phone:

Settings

Lock screen

Smart lock

Enter pin

Trusted devices

Add trusted device

Select the PC you connect to

Now you will never see this annoying and ridiculous screen again when you try to open an app. Instead you will just see a button that says "unlock", and when you click it the app will open as it should. When you are done with the app, you will notice the screen on your phone is still on, but it will time out with whatever you have it set to, and turn back off as usual.

Hope this helps.

This worked for me as well.

Other work around I found is use a trusted device or place in android. After adding the computer to trusted device, the phone automatically unlocks and no need to enter password.

Thanks Steve - so far that seems to be working!

With the "Update Apps Automatically" option turned off, there's something you'll want to do periodically:

On you PC, open the Microsoft Store app. In the app pane on the left, there's a "Library" widget. Click on it. Under "Updates and Downloads" will be a list of apps that have updates available. You should update all apps that have updates available EXCEPT the Phone Link app.

I hadn't checked my Library in a while and there were 11 apps that needed updating on my PC.

-Steve

Thanks Steve - so far that seems to be working!