How to Enable or Disable Require Lowercase Letters for PIN in Windows 10
Windows Hello in Windows 10 enables users to sign in to their device using a PIN (Personal Identification Number). You can use this PIN to sign in to Windows, apps, and services.
One important difference between a password and a Hello PIN is that the PIN is tied to the specific device on which it was set up. That PIN is useless to anyone without that specific hardware. Someone who steals your password can sign in to your account from anywhere, but if they steal your PIN, they'd have to steal your physical device too!
Even you can't use that PIN anywhere except on that specific device. If you want to sign in on multiple devices, you have to set up Hello on each device.
You can block or require users to use digits, lowercase letters, uppercase letters, special characters in their PIN by enabling PIN Complexity Group Policy.
This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable PIN Complexity requirements for users to include at least one lowercase letter in their PIN in Windows 10.
You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.
]If you set this Require lowercase letters policy to not configured (default), users are not able to include lowercase letters in their PIN by default. If require digits has been disabled or if require uppercase letters or require special characters has been enabled, then users may include lowercase letters in their PIN.
If you set this Require lowercase letters policy to enabled, users are required to include at least one lowercase letter in their PIN.
If you set this Require lowercase letters policy to disabled, users can't include lowercase letters in their PIN.
After you apply this policy, users will be required to change their PIN to meet the new PIN complexity requirements.
Contents
- Option One: To Enable or Disable Require Lowercase Letters for PIN Complexity using Group Policy
- Option Two: To Enable or Disable Require Lowercase Letters for PIN Complexity using a REG file
EXAMPLE: PIN complexity requirements
The Local Group Policy Editor is only available in the Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.
All editions can use Option Two below.
1 Open the Local Group Policy Editor.
2 In the left pane of local group policy editor, navigate to the location below. (see screenshot below)
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\PIN Complexity
3 In the right pane of PIN Complexity in Local Group Policy Editor, double click/tap on the Require lowercase letters policy to edit it. (see screenshot above)
4 Do step 5 (enable) or step 6 (disable) below for what you would like to do.
A) Select (dot) Enabled, click/tap on OK, and go to step 7 below. (see screenshot below)
A) Select (dot) Not Configured or Disabled, click/tap on OK, and go to step 7 below. (see screenshot below)
Not Configured is the default setting.
7 Close the local group policy editor.
8 Restart the computer to apply.
The downloadable .reg files below will add and modify the dword value in the registry key below.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\PassportForWork\PINComplexity
LowercaseLetters DWORD
(delete) = Not Configured
1 = Enabled
2 = Disabled
1 Do step 2 (not configured), step 3 (enable), or step 4 (disabled) below for what you would like to do.
This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.
Default_lowercase_letters_in_PIN.reg
Download
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.
Require_lowercase_letter_in_PIN.reg
Download
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.
Can't_include_lowercase_letters_in_PIN.reg
Download
5 Save the .reg file to your desktop.
6 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.
7 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.
8 If you like, you can now delete the downloaded .reg file.
9 Restart the computer to apply.
That's it,
Shawn
Related Tutorials
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- How to Change the PIN for your Account in Windows 10
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