• Annoying pop-up at start-up

    Author
    Topic
    #2488519

    At random times when I restart my laptop, after I’ve already entered my PIN on the lock screen, Windows starts up, but chooses to afflict me with an annoying “Making sure it’s you” pop-up that requires me to enter my PIN a second time, and then enter the password for my MS account, which I can’t remember, don’t want to remember, never use, and would have to dig out of an encrypted file which is on the computer that the pop-up is preventing me from using.

    Remarkably, I don’t have to enter the PIN or password in order to get rid of this pop-up.
    Instead, I can go into the task manager and hit “end task” for “Microsoft Account.” True, I have to keep hitting “end task” four or more times to get it to work, but eventually the pop-up goes away, and I can then use the computer without further ado.

    This annoyance has cropped up only recently, and I’d like to prevent it from ever happening again. I have Win 10 Pro Version 21H2 Build 19044.2006 on both my desktop and my laptop, but the problem occurs only on the laptop. I haven’t changed any settings, and it’s hard to imagine that I did something to cause this.

    I’d appreciate any and all advice on how to deal with this problem.

    Thanks.

    P.S. I must vent briefly. It boggles the mind to know that Microsoft designed a “security” measure that can be circumvented by simply using the task manager. Likewise, that this pop-up requires whoever has already entered my PIN at the lock screen to enter it a second time, as a matter of “security”, as though no unauthorized person would know how to enter it more than once. “Security” indeed.

    Viewing 1 reply thread
    Author
    Replies
    • #2488556

      Check the Event Viewer to see if there are any clues about the program that is requesting the PIN. It might fail due to you ending the task.

      cheers, Paul

      • #2488729

        I looked in the Event Viewer, but I’m enough of a computer ignoramus that I didn’t understand what I was looking at.

        I was going to reply to request further guidance, but first followed up on the other suggestion — to check my account information — and that led to a solution, which I’ll elaborate on in my reply to that other message.

        Thanks for your help.

    • #2488591

      Try Settings, Account, Verify.

      Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.1778 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

      • #2488731

        To be pendantic, I can find

        Settings

        Accounts

        but no “verify”

        1 user thanked author for this post.
        b
        • #2488763

          I did mean to say Accounts, but I believe a Verify button may only appear when a Microsoft account needs to be verified.

          Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.1778 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

      • #2488733

        I’ve done this and it seems to have fixed things, at least for now.

        When I went into Settings | Accounts, there was a link (I’ve already forgotten the exact wording) saying that I had to “update” my account information. When I clicked on that, it asked for my PIN, and then my password. However, it wouldn’t accept the latter, so then I had to reset my Microsoft password. Oddly enough, when I tried to do so using the password that I wanted (the one that I had a record of already having), MS refused to accept it, for the very reason that it was my old password. Not clear to me why it didn’t work if MS already knew it was my password, but whatever.  So then I had to create a new password, going through the rigamarole of getting verification codes, first to my email, and then to my phone.

        Which, as before, leaves me baffled in (at least) two respects. First, all this nonsense with my password couldn’t have been anything other than something that Microsoft considers a security matter (why else diddle with passwords?), so more than slightly amazing that it could be so easily circumvented by using the task manager. Second, it seems very odd that only my laptop started acting up this way, when I had my account set up exactly the same way on my desktop.

        Now that I’ve changed the MS password, but haven’t done anything with the account information on my desktop, I’m wondering whether something similar is going to happen the next time I reboot my desktop. I dunno, and will have to see. If it does, maybe I’ll have to change the password again, this time through the desktop, which will then cause the same problem to recur with the laptop, whereupon I’ll have to change the password yet again, leading to a recurrence of a problem with the desktop, and on and on in an endless loop. My modern updating, I suppose, of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. Fun, for sure.

        Anyway, thanks large for helping me fix the problem.

    Viewing 1 reply thread
    Reply To: Annoying pop-up at start-up

    You can use BBCodes to format your content.
    Your account can't use all available BBCodes, they will be stripped before saving.

    Your information: