Instead of setting the password during the OOBE wizard, set it later. This hasn’t changed from earlier versions of Windows where you had to enter a password hint.
After the setup process is complete, press Ctrl+Alt+Del and select “Change a password”. You will be prompted to enter your old password (empty) and your new password.
If you already entered security questions, you’ll probably have to remove your password first and then use the Ctrl+Alt+Del method. Depending on the how you remove the password, you may lose access to EFS-encrypted files.
Like the password hint on earlier Windows versions, this probably cannot be deactivated on non-domain accounts.
Answer from user219095 on Stack ExchangeInstead of setting the password during the OOBE wizard, set it later. This hasn’t changed from earlier versions of Windows where you had to enter a password hint.
After the setup process is complete, press Ctrl+Alt+Del and select “Change a password”. You will be prompted to enter your old password (empty) and your new password.
If you already entered security questions, you’ll probably have to remove your password first and then use the Ctrl+Alt+Del method. Depending on the how you remove the password, you may lose access to EFS-encrypted files.
Like the password hint on earlier Windows versions, this probably cannot be deactivated on non-domain accounts.
Starting with Windows 10 build 18237, a new group policy was added for preventing the use of security questions for local accounts. Open Local Group Policy Editor and go to:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Credential User Interface
Prevent the use of security questions for local accounts
Look for a policy called "Prevent the use of security questions for local accounts" and enable it. Source
If you want to delete the security questions that was already set up for local account, open Registry Editor and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY\Policy\Secrets. Delete any subkey that begins with L$_SQSA_. Source
Remove security questions for Windows 10 local account
This makes sense for your every day home user who only has to go through this process every time they set up a new computer, but for a professional working with many customer PCs and VMs, it's a new PITA (along with the rest of this new setup process). Usually I'm just creating an account that is going to get wiped out in a few minutes by a script and having to manually click this drop down, select a question, and type some nonsense in is a big waste of time.
I would love if they could add a "Skip" function for admins, even if it is a hidden one. It's trivial to reset a password on a Windows desktop anyway provided it's not using Bitlocker.
Hi Tom, this is a new feature in Windows 10, it enables the user to recover their password if they are logging in with a local account rather than a Microsoft Account
There always has been a problem recovering local account passwords in Windows, whereas with a Microsoft Account the user could just reset it on the Microsoft website.
As for being able to bypass that option, if the user will be logging in with a local account, you should just provide generic answers and then share those with the user . . .