Awesome! Microsoft finally implements in Windows 10 January Technical Preview one of my most requested Security feature: Extended PIN. Since Windows 8, we’ve had three options to login to Windows after the initial First Time login with password:

• By Password
• By PIN
• Picture Password

The last two were implemented to allow quick and secure login to Windows. They are both more convenient than password in that PIN is just a four number character that is easily remembered and typed in, and the Picture Password uses a graphic prompt to set touch pattern on the graphic as login pattern. The problem with the ease of PIN is there also the higher risk of security. See, PIN is meant to be used when you’re alone at your desk and no one is looking over your shoulders. It quickly breaks down when someone is looking and you type 1234, easily remembered by shoulder-surfers. So some of us have been requesting that MS allow Extended PIN to contain longer PIN length for security reasons. Now we gladly inform that we now have the option to use extended PIN as you can see above. When you turn the “Use a simple PIN” flag OFF, you now have the opportunity to enter more than four number PIN as below:

Way to go Microsoft! Again thanks for listening to your customers.