How to Automatically Login to a Windows 11 PC After it Boots

Windows 11 is the fastest loading version of Windows available today, however, if you want to make it even faster you set can up automatic login which skips the sign-in process and takes you directly into the user account without your manual input every time you start your computer.

Also, if you are setting up a Windows 11 computer for public use (like in an internet cafe, library, etc.), you may want to set up automatic login, because anyone who sits on the computer should be able to use it without the password.

When you turn on your Windows 11 PC, you will be greeted with the lock screen after a few seconds, then you need to get past the lock screen. After that, you need to select the account on the login screen and sign in using the selected sign-in option (password, picture password, security key, PIN, facial recognition, or fingerprint). However, if you want to skip all this and jump straight to the desktop after the system boots, there are 4 different methods to configure Windows 11 to sign in automatically.

If you want to avoid the inconvenience of typing your password every time you start the system, you can set up automatic login via Settings. However, setting up automatic login is not recommended if multiple people use your personal computer or if you have confidential information on it. To enable automatic login from Settings, follow these steps:

Click on the Start button and select ‘Settings’ from the Start menu or Press Windows+I to open Settings.

Go to ‘Accounts’ in the left panel and click on ‘Sign-in options’ from the right.

Under Additional settings, select ‘Never’ from the ‘If you’ve been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again?’ drop-down list.

Also, if you see the ‘For improved security, only allow Windows Hello sign-in for Microsoft Accounts on this device (Recommended)’ option under the Additional setting, turn it Off.

In some cases, automatic Login will not work if any of the Windows Hello sign-in options (PIN, Fingerprint, or Facial recognition) is enabled. So, you may need to disable Windows Hello before enabling auto-login. You can first try to enable automatic login with Windows Hello, if it doesn’t work you can come back to sign-in options in Settings and remove Windows Hello.

Under Ways to sign in section, click your current sign-in method, and select ‘Remove’.

Again, click on the ‘Remove’ button on the prompt.

Then, confirm your identity by entering the password in the text field and clicking ‘OK’.

Enable Automatic Sign-in

Once you changed the settings, you need to open the User Accounts control applet to enable Automatic login.

Open the Run command box by pressing Windows+R, then type netplwiz, and hit Enter.

Once the User Accounts dialog box opens up, uncheck the ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’ option and click ‘Apply’.

When the Automatically sign-in prompt box appears, you need to enter and confirm the password for the user name you selected. Then, click ‘OK’.

Again, click ‘OK’ in the User Accounts dialog box.

Now, you can restart your computer and it will automatically log into the selected user account without your manual input.

‘Users must enter a username and password to use this computer’ Option is Missing in User Accounts

In some cases, the “User must enter a username and password to use this computer” option may not be available in the User Accounts dialog box which is what we need to enable automatic login.

If this option is missing, follow these instructions to fix it:

Open Registry Editor by opening the Run command, typing regedit, and clicking ‘OK’.

Then, navigate to the following location using the left panel:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PasswordLess\Device

On the right-hand side of the Device key or folder, double-click on the ‘DevicePasswordLessBuildViersion’ DWORD to edit it.

Then, change the DWORD value 0 in the Value data field and click ‘OK’. By default, its value is 2.

After that, open the Run dialog box, type netplwiz, and hit Enter to open User Accounts windows again.

Now, the ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’ option will be visible again.

To disable Automatic login on Windows 11, open the User Accounts dialog box by running ‘netplwiz’ in the Run box. Then, check the ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’ option in the User Accounts, click ‘Apply’ and then ‘OK’.

Another method for enabling automatic login on Windows 11 is by editing the Windows Registry Editor. Before you tweak the registry editor make sure to backup your registries. So, if anything goes wrong, you can easily restore the Windows Registry. Also, make sure not to modify any other entries in the Registry editor except the ones mentioned here.

In the Registry Editor, you need to modify three registry values related to user credentials – AutoAdminlogon, DefaultUserName, and DefaultPassword. If these registry entries are not available, you need to manually create and assign values to them.

To open Windows Registry, search for ‘Registry Editor’ in the Start menu search bar and select it from the results. Or, hold Windows Key+R, type Regedit, and then hit Enter.

Click ‘Yes’ if User Account Control (UAC) is prompted.

When the Registry Editor opens, go to the following path using the left navigation panel or copy-paste the below path in the Registry Editor’s address bar and hit Enter:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

On the right side of the Winlogon key, look for the registry entry called ‘AutoAdminLogon’ and double-click on it.

Then, enter 1 in the ‘Value data’ field and click ‘OK’.

If you can’t find the AutoAdminLogon entry in the Winlogon key, then you need to create a new string with the name ‘AutoAdminLogon’. To do that, right-click the Winlogon key on the left and click ‘New’, and select ‘String Value’. Then, rename the entry as ‘AutoAdminLogon’ and change its value to ‘1’.

Next, find the entry called ‘DefaultUserName’ on the right and double-click to edit it.

In the Value data field, enter the user name of the account you want to automatically sign in and click ‘OK’.

If you cannot find the DefaultUserName entry, right-click anywhere blank on the right pane or right-click the ‘Winlogon’, click ‘New’ and then select ‘String Value’. Then, rename the entry to ‘DefaultUserName’ and enter the username in the Value date field.

Next, look for the ‘DefaultPassword’ string value in Winlogon. If it is not available, create it. Right-click the ‘Winlogon’ key, click ‘New’, and select ‘String Value’.

Then, rename the string value to ‘DefaultPassword’. Open the entry and change its value to your user account password.

Now, close the Registry Editor and restart your computer. When the system restarts, you will notice that your Windows automatically signs in to your account without tying the password.

To turn off automatic login and have Windows 11 ask for the password again, go back to the Registry Editor, change the value of ‘AutoAdminLogon’ to 0 and delete the ‘DefaultPassword’ entry from the same location.

You can also use the Computer Management tool to automatically log in to a user account on Windows 11.

First, search for ‘Computer Management’ in the Windows Search and click the result to open it. Or, open the Run command by pressing Win+R, type compmgmt.msc, and then hit Enter.

When Computer Management opens up, expand Local Users and Groups, and then select ‘Users’ on the left panel. On the right-side panel, right-click on the user you want to log in automatically and then select ‘Set Password…’.

Before you continue, you should know this will reset your current Windows password and other passwords on your computer as well as cause irreversible loss of data.

If you want to continue, click ‘Proceed’ in the prompt box.

In the next dialog box, click ‘OK’ without entering the passwords.

This will remove the password for the user account and let you automatically sign into Windows 11.

Microsoft offers a free tool called AutoLogon that enables you to turn on and off automatic sign-in in Windows 11 with a single click. Unlike the above Registry Editor method, it encrypts and stores the user credentials in the Windows Registry and uses it to automatically login to a user account.

First, download the AutoLogon tool from the Microsoft Official website, then extract it to your desired location. Right-click the downloaded ‘AutoLogon.zip’ file and select ‘Extract All..’

Then, click the ‘Extract’ button to extract file contents.

From the extracted files, double-click the ‘Autologon64’ application file.

When the User Account Control prompt box appears, click the ‘Yes’ button. Next, for the Autologon License Agreement, click ‘Agree’.

In the Autologon – Sysinternals dialog box, enter the username of the account you want to automatically login in the ‘Username’ field, enter your domain in the ‘Domain’ field (which is usually auto-filled), type your password in the ‘Password’ field. Then, click the ‘Enable’ button.