It is recommended or in cases required that you use a strong password to log into anything. This includes your Windows machines. However, having a strong and hard-to-guess passwords is a double-edged sword because you are more likely to forget a complex password if you do not use it often. Imagine you have a Windows 10 machine that you only use sparingly, and one day when you need to use it, you cannot log in because its password is not the one you think it is. However, this kind of a situation can be mitigated by assigning a PIN number instead of a complex password.
To create a PIN on Windows 10:
Click the Start menu.
Click on Settings
Click on Accounts
Click on Sign-in Options
Under PIN click “Add.”
Create a PIN.
This PIN is machine-specific. It only applies to the machine on which it is activated. This means on another Windows 10 machine, you need to go through the same routine and if you wish, you can create a different PIN that only for that machine even though the login Windows account on that machine has the same password has the previous machine. This way, you can actually allow someone to use one of these machines by only letting them know the PIN number without divulging your Windows account password. The rationale for this is when you change your Windows account password which may also be your Microsoft account that you use to log into various online services, this change will cause a cascade where you have to update the passwords to all these various services. This can get annoying. The PIN system therefore is a modular approach to computing access management.
What happens when you do change your Windows log in password. Does this change invalidate the PIN? No. The same PIN can be used to log into Windows on that specific machine. These two machine access credentials are independent of each other. One is machine specific and the other may be global if it is also a Microsoft account, one that is textually in the form of an email address.
Because the PIN is simpler to remember and we all tend to use the same PIN everywhere, it is unlikely that you will forget it. What if you have forgotten the PIN? Then let's hope that you have not also forgotten your Windows/Microsoft log in because the log in screen gives you the option to log in using this password. Once logged in, you can reset the PIN number.
