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I am using Windows 10 Pro x64 on my personal laptop on which I have a single user account with no password. For some reason however, Windows 10 has started asking me to enter a password whenever I boot up my machine. All I have to do is press the button without entering anything, and I log in, but I would much rather skip this step in favor of an automatic sign-in. Why has this started happening only now? What can I do to stop this behavior?

DaveTheMinion
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2 Answers2

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Here is how to stop the computer from asking for a password every time:

  1. Right-click the Windows Logo (Start Button) and click "Run"
  2. Type netplwiz and click "OK"
  3. Uncheck "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer."
Moshe Katz
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  • Thanks! Idea why this was a problem? – DaveTheMinion Jul 30 '15 at 02:53
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    @DavidB The default is to ask for a password. That's all there is to it. Previous versions of Windows would just automatically "uncheck" the checkbox when there was only one user account and it had no password, but Windows 10 wants to show you the lockscreen, either for security (so other people think you have a password) or for usability (because you can have status icons show up there for various apps). – Moshe Katz Jul 30 '15 at 02:55
  • The strange thing is that I have been running Windows 10 on my machine for several days now and this only started happening today. – DaveTheMinion Jul 30 '15 at 03:00
  • Windows update recently? (Maybe one of the updates triggers that) – Darius Jul 30 '15 at 03:02
  • wow, so intuitive Microsoft, netplwiz. – dan carter Mar 16 '17 at 05:34
  • @dancarter there are other more intuitive ways to get to the same place. Typing this just happens to be the quickest one. – Moshe Katz Mar 16 '17 at 12:03
  • As of 2023, the above method did not work for me on Windows 10. Specifically, the relevant checkbox no longer appears in netplwiz. (This despite trying various tricks to make the checkbox "reappear"). However, I was able to achieve automatic login by creating three registry keys (DefaultUserName, DefaultPassword, and AutoAdminLogon) in Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon as described at helpdeskgeek.com. – mpb Sep 05 '23 at 06:19
  • @mpb You should post that as an answer to the question – Moshe Katz Sep 05 '23 at 10:57
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Moshe Katz requested that I repost my above comment as a separate answer.

As of 2023, the only method I found that works to automatically log in to Windows 10 is the following:

Use regedit to create and/or edit the following registry keys in Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon:

Create and or edit the following keys:

  • Set DefaultUserName to the user name.
  • Set DefaultPassword to the user's password.
  • Set AutoAdminLogon to the string 1.

Source:
https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/how-to-set-up-windows-10-to-login-automatically/

mpb
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