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How to Set an Account Pin on Your Windows 10 Laptop

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Updated:  
2016-03-26 7:14:33
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In order for a password to be useful on your laptop, it needs to be complex. That makes such a password a pain in the rump to type on a tablet PC, or any other time you turn on a Windows computer. To alleviate the pain, you can assign a PIN to your account.

You’re prompted to set up a PIN when you first add your account to Windows 10. If you haven’t yet done so, follow these steps to set a PIN for your account:

  1. Click the Start button.

  2. From the Start menu, choose Settings.

  3. In the Settings app, choose Accounts.

  4. On the left side of the screen, choose Sign-in Options.

  5. Click the Add button located below the PIN heading.

  6. Sign in to your Microsoft account.

    It’s the same password you use to log in to Windows. Type that password and click the Sign In button.

  7. Type a personal identification number or PIN.

  8. Type the PIN again to confirm.

  9. Click the OK button.

    The PIN is assigned.

To sign in to Windows on your laptop, type the PIN. You don’t even need to press the Enter key — just type the numbers. Try it now: Sign off and then sign back in.

To remove the PIN, repeat the steps in this section, but click the link I Forgot My PIN after Step 4. Rather than type in a new PIN, click the Cancel button, and the PIN is removed.

About This Article

This article is from the book: 

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.