Remove PIN/Password Lock Screen by turning the account Local

Question

Remove PIN/Password Lock Screen by turning the account Local

Anonymous

I have an older PC which, all of a sudden, refused to take the password for the lock screen. I had been using this password for years and it simply refused to work. I contacted the manufacturer who, for a $99 fee, would do 'advanced' tech support (it was way out of warranty so this was OK) and erase everything on my PC. This is what it takes to erase the lock screen password. This is insane.

This PC has GBs of info and, even though it is backed up to the cloud, it would still lose installed apps (so many are going to greedy subscriptions so purchased apps are gold but that is another horror story). After a harrowing and stress-filled day, I finally remember the 3 words that answered the questions to get past the lock screen. I had set these up many years ago and it was a feat of long term memory and pure luck. Without that I would have lost everything that I could not (it would take many, many days) download from the cloud. This is a nightmare.

I have since struggled to remove the lock screen password on that PC and finally managed it but I do not remember how. I have also just installed a new PC which is also Windows 11.

Click the blue square at the bottom of the screen and select the Settings icon, looks like a gear.
Click on your name at the top left of the screen. This looks like a person or has your photo if you set that up.
This gets you to Accounts
Click Your Info/Profile Photo
Click under Account settings. Mine is now set to Local account. The two options are Local account and Microsoft account.

I had fiddled with removing the PIN under Accounts > Sign-in options but that just seemed to toggle between using the password and using the pin which was not what I wanted. I wanted to remove any requirement for any password or pin when getting into my PC. After making my account local, I restarted the PC and that worked. No password, pin or other malarkey required.

I have decades of PC, iPADs, Android phones and all manner of electronic gadgets ownership and I almost lost access to my main PC. My question is this, what else am I missing in the password/PIN horror show? I want to make sure I have turned off everything so that I never wake up to see my PC locked like that. People say it is for thieves but, I ask you, where do you store your passwords? Do you write them on a Post-It and attach that to your screen? Do you put them into your PC which (in my case) was locked?

What am I missing that I should change now to make sure it never happens again?

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3 answers

Answer 1

You are welcome Peter.

If you have already turn off the Windows hello, you can skip step 1 and continue with the rest.

Yes, Microsoft account and local account are two different types of Windows user. If you are not sure, go to Settings >Accounts > Your info, does it list your email address there? If so, you are using a Microsoft account. In this case, for step 3, in the pop up, you want to make sure your username is your entire email address, and password is for your Microsoft account.

If it is a local user, all you need is just your username (not the email format) and the password for the pop up.

Answer 2

Thank you for the reply.

I had already turned this setting off before I changed my account to local. I confirmed that it is greyed out and set to off.

I want to confirm:

Microsoft.com account has an email and password.

Local account has a local user name (which shows up next to the person icon in Accounts) and its own password.

These two things are completely separate.

Is this correct?

Answer 3

Hello, this is Emily.

First, go to Settings > Accounts > Sign in options, scroll down to mid page, under "Additional Settings",Make sure "For improved security, only allow Windows Hello Sign-in for Microsoft accounts on this device (Recommended). " is turned OFF.
Type netplwiz in the search on the taskbar and press enter, select your user, if the "user must enter a username and password to use this computer" box is NOT checked, please check it , click Apply. Then uncheck the box and click Apply. This will bring up a pop up window.
On this pop up window, this is where most mistakes happen. Very important, erase the username that's prefilled. Username should be your entire email address for your Microsoft account. Password is your Microsoft account's password. I see that you said you are using local user? In this case, you just need to make sure the username is exactly as it should spell for your local user name, and then its password. Any typo here can prevent it from working. Then click OK. And back to the netplwiz page, click OK.
Restart the computer now and it should work.