To protect your system better, you can make Windows 10 automatically lockout after multiple failed login attempts for a set amount of time.
By default, your Windows accounts are protected with a password or PIN protection, depending on your settings. Generally, when the computer is locked or started, you can try as many passwords or PINs as you want to log into the system. This is helpful for some, especially if you are someone who mistypes a lot. However, if you want to better protect your system, having an unlimited password tries in not a good thing. This is especially true if you are using PIN protection.
The good thing is, you can force Windows 10 to set a lockout threshold. Depending on the threshold, Windows 10 will automatically lockout the system for a set amount of time (which you can configure). For example, if you set the threshold to three attempts and a 30-minute lockout, Windows will lockout itself for 30 minutes after three invalid login attempts. As you can see, this eliminates the unlimited password tries.
So, without further ado, let me show how you can automatically lockout Windows after multiple failed login attempts.
Note: Though I’m stressing Windows 10 in this article, the steps below can be followed in Windows 7 and 8 too.
Set Windows Lockout Threshold – Auto Lockout After Multiple Failed Login Attempts
To set the Windows account lockout threshold, we need to use the Local Security Policy. Unfortunately, the LSP is only available in Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education versions. So, if you are using any of those versions, follow the below steps.
1. First, open the Local Security Policy application. To do that, open the start menu, search for “secpol.msc” and click on the search result.
2. In the Local Security Policy window, expand the “Account Policies” folder on the left panel and select the “Account Lockout Policy” folder.
3. On the right panel, find and double-click on the “Account lockout threshold” policy.
4. In the properties window, enter the number of invalid login attempts you want to allow. In my case, I want the system to lockout after 3 invalid login attempts. So, I entered 3 in the field. Click on the “Apply” and “Ok” buttons to save changes.
5. When you set the Account Lockout Threshold, Windows automatically suggests setting two other policies. i.e, Account Lockout Duration and Reset Account Lockout Counter After. By default, both of these are set to 30 minutes. Let the defaults be and click on the “Ok” button.
Once you are done setting up the policy, this is how the main window looks like.
That is it. From now on, Windows will lock itself out after a number of failed or invalid login attempts.
Remove lockout threshold
If you ever want to remove the account lockout threshold, follow steps 1 through 4 in the above section. In step five, type 0 in the field and click on the “Ok” button. Windows will again suggest changes to two other policies. Accept the defaults by clicking on the “Ok” button.
That is it. I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, do check out how to automatically log into Windows 10.
