How to Log In Automatically to Windows 11

A stunning Windows 11 logo on a shaded blue landscape

You must first set “DevicePasswordLessBuildVersion” to “0” in the registry. After doing this, you can launch the “netplwiz” window, uncheck the box “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” and enter your account’s password. Windows 11 will then automatically log you in.

If your PC never leaves your home and you don’t really need a password, auto-login saves you the hassle of typing your password every time you turn on or restart your PC. Here’s everything you need to know to turn on auto-login.

In general, you should not use automatic login

With automatic login, your sensitive data is potentially accessible to anyone with physical access to your PC. It’s not as bad as removing your Windows 11 password entirely, but it still poses an unnecessary risk.

TIED TOGETHER: How to remove your Windows 10 password

Anyone with physical access to your PC will likely have full administrative control, meaning they can recover your Microsoft password if they really want to. From there, you can easily access your Microsoft account and everything stored there.

TIED TOGETHER: Why you shouldn’t automatically sign in to your Windows PC

If you want to use automatic login, we recommend using a local account instead.

If you simply don’t want to enter a password, consider using Windows Hello webcam login instead.

Enable the option to bypass login

Windows 11 still supports automatic login – the option is just disabled by default. We need to use the registry editor (Regedit) to tweak a few things to enable it again. Alternatively, you can simply download and use the Enable_Automatic_Login_Option.zip registry key we provide in the next section. It regulates everything automatically.

Warning: The Windows registry is essential for the functioning of the Windows 11 operating system and most of the applications that you will ever install. You must be careful when editing the registry as incorrectly deleting or changing value can lead to serious errors or even render your PC inoperable. You should familiarize yourself a little with the Windows registry before proceeding if you are unfamiliar with it.

Click the Start button, type “regedit” in the search bar, and then press Enter or click Open.

Navigate to the following address by pasting it into Regedit’s address bar:

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

Paste the path into Regedit's address bar.

Double-click the DWORD named DevicePasswordLessBuildVersion, change the value data from 2 to 0, then click OK.

Changing the value from 2 to 0 enables automatic login. Our work on the registry is complete and you can close Regedit.

Instead, use our registry hack to enable the option

If you don’t want to mess around with the registry manually, you can use our prebuilt REG file to apply the change automatically. Just download “Enable_Automatic_Login_Option.zip”, open it in your favorite file archiver and double-click “Enable_Automatic_Login_Option.reg”. Also included in the ZIP file is a “Disable” file to undo the change if you change your mind.

Download Enable_Automatic_Login_Option.zip

You will get a pop-up warning that REG files can be harmful to your PC – that’s true. A malicious REG file can cause a lot of problems. You can always examine a REG file to see what it’s doing by opening it in a simple text editor such as Visual Studio Code, Atom, Notepad, Notepad++, or countless others.

In this case, however, the REG file will only do what we described above, so just click Yes.

Enable automatic login

Changing the registry was the hard part of this job. Now all you have to do is enable local login. Press Windows + R to open the Run window, type “netplwiz” in the box, then press Enter or click OK.

Press Windows + R and then type "netplwiz" into the run prompt and press Enter.

Select your account, uncheck the box next to “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer,” then click Apply.

On the next screen you will need to enter your username and password. If you use a Microsoft account to sign in to Windows, you must use your Microsoft password as the password.

That’s it – you’re done. The next time you restart your computer, you will automatically log in directly to your selected account. Just think of the security implications.

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