Can't login into Windows 8.1 - password field limited to 9 characters?

Question

I just bought a new Windows 8 Dell Vostro 5470 laptop. I signed in with my Live account, which I use on my main computer everyday.

I upgraded into Windows 8.1, and set up fingerprint authentication as well. I didn't have a problem signing in with it, nor with my 12-character password (which I used today on my PC to log in).

Last night I locked the laptop (from the ctrl+alt+del screen) and left it. By the time I got back, it went into hibernation or something. Meaning to say, it looked turned off. I didn't touch it until today.

When I turn it back on today, I couldn't sign in. Neither the fingerprint wasn't working, nor my password - but then on a closer look, I saw that I couldn't enter more than 9 characters in the password field! Restart didn't work. Reminder - my password is 12 characters long and I used it just the day before.

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Disclaimer: this is a brand new laptop, nothing is installed on it. The only things I did with it were Windows Update, upgrade to 8.1, set up fingerprint log-in and surf the web a little bit. I don't mind totally resetting everything, I just don't know how to do it.

Your help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You can try to Unlock Windows 8 password from safe mode

Windows 8 system has a built-in administrator account that is created during Windows installation, and disable by default, which has no password in it. You need to enable that account before forgetting your other admin account password. Otherwise your built-in administrator account won’t appear in the screen in this tip.

1. Start your win 8 computer and press “F8″ while the computer boots up. Scroll down to “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” with the arrow keys on the keyboard and press “Enter.” Your computer starts in Safe Mode with Command Prompt.
2. Select the Administrator account that appear in the screen, then enter command prompt. Type: net user ****** 123456 and enter (****** is the account name which password you need to reset 123456 is the new password), it will show you a message that” the command completed successfully.
3. Restart your win 8 computer, then you can log in as ****** with the password 123456. You can go to control Panel to change your account password if necessary.