If you’re a Windows 8 user, you may be using a PIN instead of a password to protect your computer. This is a good practice because it makes it easier to access your computer if something goes wrong and you need to reset it. Here’s how to use a PIN instead of a password in Windows 8:

  1. Open the Start screen and type “cmd” into the search bar.
  2. Type “netstat -an” into the command prompt and press Enter.
  3. If the output looks like this, your computer is using a default PIN: 1034
  4. To change your default PIN, type “netstat -a | grep 1034” into the command prompt and press Enter. The output should look like this:
  5. To use a different PIN, type “netstat -a | grep 1034 -p” into the command prompt and press Enter. The output should look like this:
  6. To reset your computer to using your new default PIN, type “netstat -a | grep 1034 -r” into the command prompt and press Enter. The output should look like this:

Entering your full password on a touch screen device can really become a pain in the neck, luckily for us we can link a short 4 digit PIN to our user account and log in with that instead.

Note: PIN codes are nowhere near as safe as using an alphanumeric password, however, they do still have a purpose when you don’t want to enter your 15 character password on a touch screen device.

Creating a PIN

Press the Win + I keyboard combination to bring up the Settings Charm, then click on the Change PC settings link.

This will open up the Modern UI PC Settings app, where you can click on the Users section.

On the right hand side you will see a Create a PIN button, click on it.

Now you will need to verify that you are the owner of this user account by entering your password.

Then you can choose a PIN, remember that it can only contain digits.

Now when you get to the login screen you will have the option to use a PIN.