User name or password is incorrect message upon restart after FCU

This isn't a new problem - it has happened to me since Windows 7 at least (now and again).

Try toggling netplwiz on and off a few times restarting in-between - it often resets it.

lx07 said:

Try toggle on and off netplwiz a few times restarting inbetween - it often resets it.

I have tried this "Once" but not a few times. I am going to try the latter and see what gives. Thanks!

IronZorg89 said:

...Whenever I restart/reboot my PC, the first screen that shows up even before the logon screen is:"The user name or password is incorrect"How can that be, when I have not even had a chance to enter any user name or password....

Quite easily. In netplwiz you can untick 'Users must enter a username and password to use this PC' then set up a user to automatically sign in.
Sign in User Account Automatically at Windows 10 Startup

If you enter an incorrect name and/or password for the user to automatically log in (which you are allowed to, it's not checked) then you'll see that message at startup. To clear it, open Netplwiz and either tick the box, or untick it and correct the user's details.

In your case, looks like something in this area got misconfigured during the upgrade to FCU. Should be easy to reset.

As a side note, sometimes an incorrect password here can be useful. For a family PC where security isn't an issue, some choose to have no passwords for their users. In this case, then at startup there won't be a prompt to choose a user, it will automatically sign in as the last user who was signed in. To get a choice of users at startup, you could set a user to log in automatically, but with an incorrect password.

lx07 said:

This isn't a new problem - it has happened to me since Windows 7 at least (now and again).

Try toggling netplwiz on and off a few times restarting in-between - it often resets it.

I have just finished trying it three times and restarting in between. It didn't work. I think I am going to go for a clean boot procedure and I will post back.

Bree said:

Quite easily. In netplwiz you can untick 'Users must enter a username and password to use this PC' then set up a user to automatically sign in.
Sign in User Account Automatically at Windows 10 Startup

If you enter an incorrect name and/or password for the user to automatically log in (which you are allowed to, it's not checked) then you'll see that message at startup. To clear it, open Netplwiz and either tick the box, or untick it and correct the user's details.

In your case, looks like something in this area got misconfigured during the upgrade to FCU. Should be easy to reset.

As a side note, sometimes an incorrect password here can be useful. For a family PC where security isn't an issue, some choose to have no passwords for their users. In this case, then at startup there won't be a prompt to choose a user, it will automatically sign in as the last user who was signed in. To get a choice of users at startup, you could set a user to log in automatically, but with an incorrect password.

Thanks for your assistance, Bree. The thing is I want to be able to restart the computer as it used to be before FCU, i.e., right-click the Windows logo button at the far extreme left of the Taskbar and hover over "Shut down or sign out" and then click on Restart and not having this mind-boggling message: "The user name or password is incorrect".

I really don't want to leave my computer unprotected. I have three accounts on my PC: mine as the administrator, a standard user account, and a local Administrator account. I have also tried what you have suggested in netplwiz, — untick the: "users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" where one is asked to select the user and then enter user name and password — It works, but it is just a temporary solution. As I just mentioned to "Ix07" above, I am going to try a clean boot procedure and will post back. I am pretty sure some apps either from UWP or from my desktop is causing the issue.

Brink said:

Hello IronZorg89, :)

If you haven't already, check to see if you may need to "Verify" your Microsoft account using option 1 below.

Add or Remove Trusted Devices for Microsoft Account User Accounts Tutorials

I had it "Verify" your Microsoft account as I mentioned in your thread (tutorial): Add Shutdown to desktop context menu. That's when after receiving the code from Microsoft on my phone, I thought everything was OK. Meaning I don't have Verify anymore as suggested in Option One of the tutorial you are referring to.

My gut feelings are telling me to try a clean boot procedure, because every time I click on "Restart" I have this very first message: "This app is preventing you from restarting" to which I always click on "Restart anyway". The point is I don't know diddly-squat about which app it is, since there is only a nameless generic icon beside the message.

Thanks anyhow, I will post back.

I have tried the clean boot procedure by following the Tenforums' tutorial to a T, but couldn't find the culprit. My guess is, since one has to "Hide all Microsoft services" while clean booting, it has got to be one of those from Microsoft. I have not tinkered around with the latter for fear that I might not be able to restart at all. Probably, I will give it a try at Microsoft Services tomorrow and see what happens..

Eureka!!!. I really found the solution to the problem and it was something very simple. All one has to do is to go to Settings (gear icon) > Accounts > Sign-in Options. In the Sign-in options page, scroll down up to Privacy. Underneath the latter, put the toggle to "OFF" for "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart". That really did the trick, because after that I restarted the PC twice, just to make sure and I never saw again the message " The user name or password is incorrect". I did it for both of my PCs which rebooted directly to the logon screen.



A big thank you at @Brink, @ Bree, @ Ix07 for your help and support.