Windows 11 Sign Issues with Challenge Phrase

Exactly.
Where did this come from with no preparation or warning for the user? No instructions for solving the puzzle. A challenge, indeed, but I had no idea that that was what we signed up for when we tried "too many times" to get into an account that is critical to internet use if you have an MS system. "Too many times" in whose opinion? Certainly not for people like me who are dyslexic and have low vision and problems remembering numbers and with typing on a keyboard that serves as a barrier for people with left/right and center line issues which is a significant part of the population. Left and right is the same to us and the QUERTY keyboard is painful and frustrating where there is a 50% chance we will hit the wrong key. I spend twice as much time correcting as I do typing, squinting to find the mistakes and many cases what we have typed is hidden from view. How is one supposed to go from there other than to keep on trying and trying and trying. In that situation, how many attempts is too many? Yes, it is a challenge but what for some is a breeze is nearly impossible for others like me. Brains are wired differently and that needs to be taken into account. It's the difference between inventors and engineers. Inventors have imaginations and can think of what problems might arise while engineers usually just follow the cookbook instructions insisting that they are following the instructions and it should work. Ha! Many of the problems I am now with using the internet are because there are too few people with imaginations producing the product foisted upon us like this so-called 'challenge question'. It was totally counter-intuitive and I spent many hours looking not having any idea what is meant. It was not a question. It was a phrase that had mo logical meaning. Even with the solution staring me in the face, I could not make a connection to "challenge question" Instead, the instructions should have said something like type in the letters and numbers you see here. Just like the challenges that we use to show we are humans and not robots. The real challenge is to platform designers to challenge and defend us from scammers and others getting into our accounts when they have no business or legitimate purpose for invading our privacy. There are ways, but it takes people with imagination to come up with solutions and those are the people who are shut out of their accounts for 'trying too many times' or 'making too many attempts' to get into our own accounts. I have spent countless hours on the phone with customer service agents trying to get into not only this accounts but nearly all of them. I get some who understand and more often those who do not get it that I am unable to get into MY OWN ACCOUNTS because of the lack of vision on the part of the designers of these torture devices. That is what they have become to me and people like me.

Also. codes sent for 2-step variation and such, using words from the dictionary would ease the pain and frustration for many of us who can remember a word like "buffalo" and get it typed in so much easier than random numbers in a long stream that mean nothing. Replace the 10 characters of numbers with the 26 of our alphabet. So much better for all us word v number folks.

Just enter A1B2C3 and hit enter. It's that simple. I had the same problem and was flummoxed. It's an easy fix but annoying as I too never set anything up so didn't know what it wanted

Hi Anne.6,

First of all congratulations on your problem being solved, then I'm going to give you a brief introduction to the "challenge phrase".

"Challenge Phrase" is a new approach taken by Microsoft to thwarting brute force attacks or cyber trespassers.  In general, the verification of the challenge phrase occurs only after lots of failed PIN code logins. This attack is because there are a large number of identical passwords or PIN codes, they through a amount of attempted logins, occasional successful logins have been achieved.

So we recommend that you change your password and PIN in time, and develop a good habit of changing your password regularly.

I wish the above will be helpful to you. Please feel free to let me know how it goes, and I will do my best to help you.

Best Regards,

Mosken - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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If you are from Microsoft, your reply isn't useful. Why need to congratulations? It is a problem people face and unable to login into their own computer.

I am facing the challenge phrase problem, which I did not setup anything like this is in computer. If I can't resolve the challenge phrase, I can't enter my computer. Therefore you are not a good technical support.

I had this challenge phrase problem aswell

I had always used face regonition to log in and suddenly it wouldnt allow me to use it then challenge phrase nonsense

I sorted it by holding down the power button down for 2 mins and i was able to restart recovery

How does one contact MS to tell them how bad this system is that locks one out without a clue except that the wrong PIN was entered too many times. All these people had the same problem with a lot of bad replies such as those saying the only way to get around this problem is a complete reset of Windows 11..

The only helpful reply was the one that said to type in A1B2C3. I WASTED 3 days trying to figure out what was meant by the phrase 'challenge phrase' which appears nowhere else. No help from anywhere except one person who said to type in A1B2C3 when it asks for the 'challenge phrase. This group of capital letters and numbers is NOT a phrase. If the directions had said: Type in these letters and numbers exactly as you see them, perhaps users would know what to do. I do not see how this particular screen enhances security. It allows in someone who knows the secret but keeps most people locked out until they do a complete reset of Windows 11 and lose all the saved data in the process.

This is a flaw and and really bad flaw in Windows 11. The MS team needs to come up with something to replace this screen. At the very least, they should use language that would let users know what they expect them to do. As it is, it leaves people frustrated, bewildered, confused and at a loss as to what to do to unlock their computers The combination of 'challenge' and 'phrase' has no meaning to anyone and appears nowhere except on the one screen and buried in on reply on this forum. Otherwise there should be a number to call to get help.

MS, Windows 11 team, fix this flaw and test it out on real users before incorporating it into a very flawed security procedure. How can one even communicate with the people who need to do the fixing?