44 thoughts on “Can’t login into Windows 8 Consumer Preview? It’s not your fault, it’s the password bug”

  1. Well, I still can’t log in and my password was never 16 characters long. I know for a fact that everything is right (I don’t have a hotmail/live account though) and my log in is my gmail email account, password is 8 characters long and I know I can log in because I’ve done it several times on msn.com. So there’s some other error unknown to me atleast.

    Reply

    1. Hi Kevin,

      That’s strange. I have no clue on what’s the error in your case, unfortunately. :/ Let me know if you manage to solve the issue by some workarounds etc.

      Rgds,
      Taylor

      Reply

    2. I have the same problem. I tried logging in this morning and it says my password or email in incorrect when I know its not. I even changed the password to my Gmail and it still wont accept it.

      Reply

      1. I have reinstalled Windows 8, 3 times.

        For me i type in a password and press enter… then nothing.

        Doesn’t say incorrect, just sits there can’t sigh in to the MSN, Xbox, Mail

        Password is right as it works in Chrome..

    3. I cannot log into my ADMIN account either. I have reset the password but no luck.

      However I can get into a GUEST account – so there is an issue with Passwords.

      Go to MICROSOFT ACCOUNT and the same password gets me in ! This is very bad on the part of Microsoft.

      Reply

  2. I’m having the same issue. password is only 10 characters, and i DO have a live.com email. it simply wont let me in. I have a windows 7 partition on my computer, i can log into my LIVE.com email on that but not on windows 8 sign in. I’ve even tried the Visual Passcode, and that failed to log me in as well. I could use some help.

    Reply

  3. Hi Kevin/ Zach,

    Just an idea, try entering your password except for the last character.
    I am forced to believe that the code behind is skipping the last character. So if your password is P123456789, try P12345678

    Again, i have a password greater than 16 characters and I was able to login with the first 15.

    Raj

    Reply

    2. Thank you, thank you!!!! Entering my password onecharacter short worked! I was ready to reinstall or do the password hack.

      Reply

  6. Still can’t login with either less than 16 chars pw or exactly 16 char password :S
    I even created a new Windows live ID 😦 any solution?

    Reply

    1. Hi,

      Try all combinations with less password characters – less one, less two, less three etc. I have seems people have random luck of using random shortened password to login. Sad but this bug shouldn’t be there, seriously.

      Rgds,
      Taylor

      Reply

  7. Hi Mr. Ghost301,
    I try to change the password to shorter. Now my PC is dead for a week after loading W8. I have called Dell customer service – their only suggestion is to reload W7 back by sending me a DVD. No luck for me for W8 – due to this User Profile Service failed the Signon. Is this some kind of installation mis-configuration that my user profile file is missing and cannot be loaded?

    Anyone have similar problem after reboot stage?
    Thanks
    R.

    Reply

    1. Hi Ray,

      Are you able to boot into Safe Mode for the W8CP? Try to turn on the local account in the Settings so you doesn’t need to login using the Windows Live ID, I think that’s the workaround for this issue. Let me know if it works.

      Rgds,
      Taylor

      Reply

      1. Hi Taylor,
        I did try to modify user account profile at the Safe Mode for W8CP. I have accessed to very limited functions. Most of the fields related to user account setup, security have no response when I pressed the field. I can only use the Control Panel to display stuff and I see that all my existing files in W7 environment (desktop, my documents) is still there under windows.old.

        I was able to get the password in the Windows account and 3 local accounts for my PC that were setup up previously from W7 environment. After the password is clear, then I got the User Profile cannot not be loaded message after that. I think somehow these default files are missing. But the W8 install was smooth with no warnings so I don’t know what went wrong. I am waiting for the system restore DVD to arrive.
        Thanks.
        R.

  9. Hi,
    I can’t log into windows 8, too.
    I set a password a week ago and I used to login everytime when I enter the password. So I know my password perfectly! And it is enough short (6 symbols) The problem is that when I set it, I was on cyrillic input. I was not happy about that I have to write my password on different language, but everything was ok.
    Then today I found that I can’t login anymore, because I haven’t got an option to switch between the languages. My primary language was Bulgarian, but now I can’t use it. I can use only english, so i can’t type the genuine password. Do you have idea how can I proceed?

    Thanks

    Reply

  10. Good catch! I am baffled how this made it out the door with a significant bug like this. Most of us that are downloading Windows 8 and test driving it are technologists that have Live ID’s with passphrases greater than 16 characters so its weird that this limitation is there.

    Reply

  11. Hey all,

    I had the same problem, I couldn’t log-in and my password was less than 16 characters. Removing letters didn’t work. I logged in to my Windows Live account and changed the password, that took care of it.

    Here’s the Microsoft Answers article that led me to that solution.

    Here’s the really strange thing: after I logged in, the “u” key on my keyboard didn’t work, and there was a “u” in my original password. Restarting the computer only after I successfully logged in fixed the keyboard problem.

    Crazy! I hope others find this useful.

    Reply

  12. This issue is actually a little different than described.

    Windows local accounts support passwords up to 127 characters.
    Live ID / Microsoft accounts support passwords up to 16 characters.

    When you sign in with a Live ID on the web, the web sign in password field simply ignore keystrokes after 16 characters. You may THINK you have a long password, but you don’t. On the web (such as when signing into Hotmail) if you only enter the first 16 characters, you sign in just fine.

    The issue is that with Windows 8, the main login page supports both Windows local accounts, and ‘Connected accounts’ (Live IDs). Because of this, the Win8 UI doesn’t ignore password characters >16 long. When you keep typing, Windows accepts those extraneous characters that the Web pages ignore, and this breaks your login.

    Hope that helps,
    -Scott

    Reply

  13. I have a wierd issue here, I’ve been using the beta for about a month now, with no problems. My computer ran updates and know when it restarts it only allows face recognition. Then, it says that face recognitions is auto updating and ask me for the face recognition password. Only problem is, I have no password for this. I’ve tried using my regular login and leaving it blank. I’ve tried rebooting multiple times, I can’t get into safe mode either. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Reply

  14. hi
    i have changer my interface on win8 to arabic , so in log screen i have to write my password but here is the supries !!!! i can’t change langu to english , it’s keep write in arabic and there is nothing in screen i can do to change the lang to english plz help , i want to log into my windows…..

    Reply

    1. Hi,

      I am sorry that the reply might come in too late, but as suggested by Eqbal, try changing your password to only numbers because it seems that in the logon screen, the keyboard for specific language is turned on.

      Rgds,
      Taylor

      Reply

  15. hello my friend thank you cery much you help me so much. fuck 2days i try to log in and i didnt know what happen and when i read your info i understand . i was have 17words my pass and i put the 16 and its ok now . thank you

    Reply

  16. Hi everyone,

    Thought this might help some of you which are using more than one language on your systmes. I have 2 languages installed on my system: English and Persian (Yeh, I’m a Persian, so what :)?)! I’ve been using Win 8 for 3 days and kept logging in with my win live ID without any problems until last night, which it simply didn’t! I was sure that my password was correct because I could login to my windows live account on another system with the same password and without any problems! So, you may have noticed that Win 8 has a schematic “eye” icon in the password text box which when you click it, will reveal the password! That’s when I understood that the password is being entered in Persian language and hence the failure to login. So, what I did was that I change my password into only numbers and now I’m writing this to you from my Win 8.

    Overall, Windows is going down. The new windows only consumed 20GB more of my hard drive and almost nothing new other than the looks.

    Reply

  19. hi all,

    i have the same problem not being able to login because my password was written in english but windows 8 login screen has set default keyboard to be cyrillic.

    Now i tried to reset my password on windows live, but when i enter only numbers it gives me error and insists i use numbers + low/uppercase letters and special characters. Then i tried to enter new password written in cyrillic so i can type it on my PC, but the windows live page says the characters iv used are not allowed symbols!! Uh… im facing the wall here 😦

    So i can type only cyrillic on the login screen but i can not have cyrillic symbols in my password.

    Is there any other workaround then installing new windows?

    thanks,
    jag

    Reply

    1. Hi there,

      That’s really frustrating!

      Try to see if you can call the on-screen keyboard at the Login screen, I suppose that can be changed to English Keyboard (I hope). Try pressing ‘Shift’ key multiple times to see if you can call up the Ease of Access feature (which work in W7, not sure if it’s still there in W8).

      Rgds,
      Taylor

      Reply

      2. Hi Zahid,

        Make sure you really type in the dots because it might be different in different keyboard layout. Initially Windows 8 installation is using UK keyboard layout for me which is really strange, but you can change the language at the login screen.

        Rgds,
        Taylor

  21. Having same problem, my password is only 8 characters long. (windows 8). Ive gone to the reset page so many times it wont let use it again for 24 hours. Still wont accept any of the new passwords that Ive created. Im at my wits end!! I just purchased this computer one week ago and im ready to toss it out the window! Great new operating system by Windows, I cant even get past the password screen! Help!!

    Reply

  22. Same problema here. I also tried another reset programs, but none of them worked out.
    And i’m posting here by my netbook; the same password works here, but not in the desktop.

    Reply

  23. I tried the fixes on my new Asus R500v. I began leaving off the last letter of my 13 word password then each attempt left off one more…so 13 -12-11-10-9 each the reducing the password by 1 (the last letter). nothing worked, after the 9th try I typed the full password in again and it worked. Absolutely bizarre. Hope this helps others. Go Through the motions. It worked. Microsoft? You can do way better.

    Reply

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