When you create a local user account either during the Windows 10 install or after installing Windows 10, the Windows OS allows you to set a password for the local account. But if you didn’t add a password to your or one of the local accounts on your PC and want to protect the account with a password now, you can do so now.
Please note that standard account holders can’t add a password to their accounts, meaning only administrators can add a password to accounts.
NOTE 1: While creating a password, make sure that it includes at least one upper case letter, one lower case letter, a number, as well as a special character to make it secure. Please don’t use passwords to like 123, 12345, admin, and password as these are very commonly used passwords.
NOTE 2: Remembering a strong password is not an easy task, especially if you’re using unique passwords for all of your accounts. If the password is strong and not easy to remember, please create a password reset disk so that you can sign-in to Windows 10 even if you forget your account password. Alternatively, you can use this free password recovery tool to reset or recover your password without booting into Windows 10.
NOTE 3: You can add a password to a local account even if you have signed-in to your account using a Microsoft account (refer to Method 2 for instructions in this case), but you must have the admin rights on the PC.
Method 1 of 2
Add password to your local Windows 10 account via the Settings app
Note that this method can’t add passwords to accounts other than the account that you have signed-in. If you want to add a password to one of your local accounts, please refer to the instructions in Method 2 (scroll down to see).
Step 1: Open the Settings app either by clicking its icon on the Start menu or simultaneously pressing the Windows logo key, and I key on your keyboard.
Step 2: Click Accounts (Your accounts, email, sync, work, family) and then click Sign-in options.
Step 4: Click on the Password section, click the Add button to open the Create a password dialog.
Step 5: Enter your new password, re-enter the password, and then enter a hint for your password if you wish to do so, and then click the Next button.
You will see the following screen where you need to click the Finish button to add the password to the Windows 10 local account. From here onwards, you need to enter the password to sign-in to your Windows 10 account.
That’s it!
Method 2 of 2
Add password to a local account in Windows 10 via Control Panel
Please note that when you add a password to an account other than the account that you have signed-in, the account will lose EFS-encrypted files, personal certificates, and stored passwords for websites or network resources.
Step 1: Type Control Panel in the Start menu search box and press Enter key to open the same.
Step 2: Click User Accounts. Click User Accounts again in the next window as well.
Step 3: Click Manage another account. Click Yes button if you see the User Account Control prompt. If you haven’t signed-in as the admin, you will be asked to enter the password to continue.
Step 4: Click on the local account that you want to protect with a password. This will open Change an Account window.
Step 5: Click Create a password link.
Step 6: Enter a password, confirm the new password by re-entering the same, and type a hint for the password (optional), and then click Create a password button. That’s all!
How to reset or change Microsoft account password in Windows 10 guide might also interest you.
