How to change your account password in Windows 8

If you are logging in to Windows 8 with a Microsoft Account to benefit from a couple of features such as data synchronization between accounts and options to recover passwords online, you may eventually run into a issue that I experienced recently.

I received a warning in Outlook that my account was limited and the only way I was able to resolve it was to change the account password and verify the account by phone. So far so good. The issue now was that I had saved the old password on the system so that it would log me in automatically on start of it.

Each time I booted into Windows 8 after changing the password resulted in a "the user name or password is incorrect. Try again." message. Entering the correct password allowed me to log in manually but Windows would not save the new password automatically. I had to change it in the system's records to enable the automatic login again. Here is how that is done.

Changing the account password in Windows 8

To change the saved account password in Windows 8 do the following:

• Press the Windows key to display the start screen interface if you are not already there
• Enter Control Panel and select the result with a click or tap on it
• Click on the User Accounts and Family Safety category and there on user accounts.
• Select Make changes to my account in PC settings. This loads the full screen control panel of Windows 8.
• Locate the change your password option and click on it
• Enter the current password and twice the new password

We are not done yet as it is necessary to configure the auto sign in again. I have detailed how that is done here. Here is a quick summary of what you need to do:

• Press the Windows key.
• Enter netplwiz and hit enter.
• Select the user account you want to configure auto log in for and uncheck the "users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" box.