Windows 10: Unable to sign in to Cortana to turn it on

I chose not to use Cortana when I upgraded to Windows 10 recently. I decided to turn on Cortana now because of a particular issue. I reach the point of "Before we get started, I'll need you to sign in with a Microsoft account". I click the "Sign in" box. A grey/black box appears with a 'people' icon inside that then disappears. This action prompts an application error as follows:
Faulting application name: AccountsControlHost.exe, version: 10.0.10586.122, time stamp: 0x56cc1660
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.10586.306, time stamp: 0x571af331
Exception code: 0x00000004
Fault offset: 0x0000000000071f28
Faulting process ID: 0x1108
Faulting application start time: 0x01d1dd05e0841e4a
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.AccountsControl_cw5n1h2txyewy\AccountsControlHost.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report ID: 8a8f48fc-7672-432c-bf6b-8acb012f9321
Faulting package full name: Microsoft.AccountsControl_10.0.10586.0_neutral__cw5n1h2txyewy
Faulting package-relative application ID: App

:)

 

Initial Log on

I've forgotten the log on or miss type my password on my new windows 10 laptop, does any one know how to reset it or get past it? I've only had it 3 days and can't remember the password or miss typed it (I set it up late the first night and have tried
every miss typed version I can think of) and now I don't what to do.

 

Upgraded to Windows 10 from 7 and now my password doesn't work and I'm locked out

This happened to me too but it was easy to fix once I understood the problem:

When you upgrade to Windows 10, if you then (at any point in time) log into your Microsoft account (e.g. to set up email), Microsoft essentially hijacks your local computer account and changes your local computer login password to the password used for your
Microsoft account (there is no obvious warning or indication that they are doing this)

To fix the problem you have a few options:

1) disconnect your computer from WiFi and any internet connection - then it will go back to using the original local password

OR

2) log in with your Microsoft account password (which you can probably even change on another computer if you have forgotten it)

I think you can change your Windows 10 settings to NOT use your Microsoft account upon