Fingerprint reader not working on Windows 11: "This option is currently unavailable"

Reported

Anonymous

I recently got a Dell Inspiron with Windows 11 preloaded. The fingerprint reader was working fine at first, but now it appears to not be working with windows hello. The option to add a finger or remove the fingerprint are greyed out and not clickable.

I've seen posts about this issue in Windows 10, but the fixes aren't working for me.

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208 answers

Anonymous

2022-03-13T00:55:45+00:00

I found that a simple restart takes care of it. Had to do it twice now though.
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Anonymous

2022-03-13T01:08:18+00:00

Unfortunately that didnt work for me. I have surface go laptop.. the Microsoft tech support couldn't even resolve it. Seems like there needs to be a different driver for the windows hello biometrics
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Anonymous

2022-03-13T02:39:44+00:00

I have the same problem. It seems related to the fingerprint reader/driver not recovering from sleep mode. That is why it works after a restart. I found a resource that said to turn off the "auto power off" setting in the device settings for the biometric device. Unfortunately, my version of device manager doesn't have the tab for power management. I tried to find a different way to control that but wasn't able to find anything.
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Anonymous

2022-03-13T03:35:20+00:00

Nope..I tried everything..Nothing worked
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Anonymous

2022-03-13T04:16:00+00:00

Same here..nonthing has worked.. Microsoft tech support couldn't even fix it... they are sending me a new laptop.. but I feel like I'm going to have the same issue..I may not upgrade to windows 11 though unfortunately
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