Windows 10: PIN Challenges

This is part of a much longer story, but suffice to say that I had to reset my computer and do a reinstall of Windows. It's a Dell XPS 15 2-In-1, running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. In the setup page, everything's fine until I get to the point where I enter a Microsoft account. The next step is to enter a PIN for this computer. At that point the keyboard locks up. Actually, not all of the keyboard; the 1-0 numbers still work, but the letters don't.


I have reinstalled/run Norton antivirus, restored Windows several times, done all of the Windows updates, all of the manufacturer updates Dell... I even went to the Device Manager, went through the entire list and checked for driver updates one at a time.


For the moment I created a PIN using a long numeric sequence no, not Pi ;- but even if I go to User Accounts and try to change the PIN the keyboard doesn't work. It obviously works the rest of the time as I'm typing this out now.


There's another, possibly unrelated issue, in that my computer has two Thunderbolt ports USB-C and two USB-C 3.1 ports. It will charge from the two USB-C ports but it won't charge from the Thunderbolt ports. I can, however, connect my phone or a drive to the Thunderbolt ports. It'll read the disk, charge my phone, etc.


Any ideas?


Thanks,

Mike.

:)

 

Challenge phase requested on every start up

Hi, someone tried to access my computer a couple of weeks ago now and I am now getting asked to complete a challenge phase every time I start up before I can enter my pin.

The fix was listed as ...

1. Press Windows key + R to launch the Run command.
2. Type netplwiz and press Enter.
3. On the User Accounts window, select your username and uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer.
4. Click Apply.
5. Type your Password twice and click OK.
6. Restart your PC and redo the steps in reverse to enable the sign in with password again.
7. Restart your PC again and see if the challenge phrase would still occur.

However maybe as I am administrator I am not being offered the option to uncheck users must enter a user name and password to use this computer.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Clear "Pin suggested" list in People Bar

Does anybody know how to clear the "Pin suggested" list on the "People bar"?

Contacts are added to the "Pin suggested" list once you've pinned and unpinned them. But there seems to be no obvious way to remove them from that list.

After playing around with this feature and pinning and unpinning many dummy contacts, it's rather annoying to see them in the "Pin suggested" list when you click on the "My People" icon in the taskbar.

 

PIN at start up

Hi Scott,

Welcome to Microsoft Community and thank you for your interest in Windows 10.

I suggest you to follow the below steps how to Change PIN password:

• In the search box, type settings.
• Then Click on accounts.
• Then on the left hand side click on sign in options.
• Then you can Select Change PIN password and remove the pin.

Hope this information was helpful and do let us know if you need further assistance. We will be glad to assist.