Want the best insurance? Quickly set the system strong password!

Most Windows 10 users are using a password login method, so the password becomes a security guarantee for Windows 10 login. However, many friends often use the weak passwords such as 123456 and asdfhg when setting up Windows 10 login passwords. Such weak passwords are ineffective for Windows 10 security protection. Let's take a look today to see how Windows 10 enforces strong passwords.

Enable group policy, password is guaranteed

How to ensure the security of a password, the security expert's proposal first set a password for a variety of character combinations, followed by a regular password replacement. If Windows 10 password settings are to meet these requirements, users above the Professional Edition can use Group Policy to force settings.

In the search box, enter "gpedit.msc", start the Group Policy Editor, and then expand "Computer Configuration → Windows Settings → Security Settings → Account Policies → Password Policy", and then double-click the "Password must meet the complexity requirements" on the right side. Set it to "Enabled" (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Password must meet complexity requirements

Return to the settings window, click on "Minimum password length" and set the password length to a minimum of 6 digits (Figure 2).

Figure 2 set the password length

In this way, when we set the password for the Windows 10 account again, if we enter a simple character like 123456, the system will pop up a prompt requesting that we must set the password complexity, not a strong password can not be set (Figure 3).

Figure 3 weak password settings will be rejected by the system

For the same password security, you can also set the number of days for using the password in the above policy (42 days by default). In general, the security best operation is to set the password to expire after 30 to 90 days, and you can open the maximum password age. , Set your own password use period (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Maximum password age setting

In this way, the Windows 10 prompts us that the password will expire soon after the end of the service life. Only when the new password is reset can the Windows 10 system continue to be used. However, even after going through the above settings, because the memory of strong passwords is difficult, some friends set a new password when they expire, and they will continue to use the original password for memory purposes. To prevent this security risk, open the “enforce password” in the policy window. The “History” setting will set the retention password history to “10”, which means that you can continue to use the previously set password only after using 10 new passwords (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Enforce password history setting

The above password setting is only for the local login account. Now many Windows 10 friends use the Microsoft account login system. For this type of account, click "Start → Current Login Account → Change Account Settings" and in the window that opens, click "Manage My Microfost Account" (Figure 6).

Figure 6 Managing Microsoft Accounts

Open the web page using your own Microsoft account login. After successful login, switch to the "Security → Change Password" tab, click on "Change Password", enter the correct login password, check the box below "Set the password to 72 day". After waiting 72 days, Windows 10 will remind you that you need to change your Microsoft Microsoft account password (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Online account password validity period setting

hint:

For home use Because there is no group policy, if you want to set the validity period of the account password, you can use an administrator identity to start a command prompt and then enter the following commands:

Wmic UserAccount where Name='Current username' set PasswordExpires=True

Net accounts /maxpwage: the number of days to use

Command explanation:

Use the wmic command to force the password for the current login account to be valid. If the current system has only one local account, or if you want to set the password expiration date for all local accounts, enter “wmic UserAccount set PasswordExpires=True”. Note that entering the above command will force the current password to expire. You need to immediately change the password. Make sure you remember the original password. So the next time the password expires, the system will prompt you to change the password (Figure 8).

Figure 8 Command Behavior Home User Open Password Validity Period

One does not leak, set more complex PIN code

To make it easier to log in to Windows 10 and install new system users, Windows 10 will suggest that users set a PIN code to log in to the system. However, the default PIN code is composed of simple numbers. If a PIN code is used to log in users, it is obvious that simple passwords cannot effectively protect the security of the system. Now you can modify the registry to make the PIN code settings more complicated.

Start the Group Policy Editor as above and expand "Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Hello for Business → PIN Complexity". Here you can enable related settings based on the word needs. For example, if you want the PIN code to contain uppercase letters, then open it. The corresponding setting and set to "Enabled" (Figure 9).

Figure 9 PIN complexity settings

In this way, when we add the PIN code to the system under “Account Settings→PIN”, the password character must contain at least one uppercase letter (it cannot set the letter by default). Otherwise, the setting cannot be completed, which can effectively protect the security of the system ( Figure 10).

Figure 10 PIN code settings