How to sign in to MS Acct when screen pops up / goes away

GMF 0 Reputation points
2025-10-07T23:00:03.34+00:00

I was trying to enroll in ESU for windows 10, but when I click on enroll now, a small grey screen pops up briefly then goes away. My acct is administrator and I was logged into MS Acct. I created a local acct to login, to see if then forcing the switch to of logging into Microsoft Acct would maybe connect it if a link was broken. However, now when I click the sign into MS acct, it is giving me the same issue of opening a blank /grey screen and going away. So now I can't sign into MS acct, so computer is still local account. I have even restarted computer, and it's the only option.

My pop-up blockers are off. I even tried adding Microsoft.com as a specific site to allow pop-ups.

So apparently whatever is blocking me from enrolling in ESU, is blocking me from signing in to my MS Acct.

It is a personal acct, not school or work. I had a work acct also, but removed it once we couldn't access from personal computers anymore. Occassionally, when it asks me to sign in, it will bring up that email address, and I cancel it, but it is not on my accts. I don't know it that it is somewhere linked and that's what is blocking my ESU update and signing in with a MS acct.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Extended Security Update (ESU)
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  1. B. Guest 0 Reputation points
    2025-10-13T19:39:14.1966667+00:00

    I have exactly the same issue!

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  2. GMF 0 Reputation points
    2025-10-08T00:09:57.6466667+00:00

    User's image

    this is what i get

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  3. Francisco Montilla 30,710 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-10-07T23:54:49.0833333+00:00

    Hello,

    You are running into a classic Windows account sign-in pane issue. The small grey window is the Microsoft account broker failing to load and closing instantly, often after a work or school account was previously connected. The quickest fix is to repair that broker so the sign-in UI can open normally.

    Close Settings and any Microsoft apps. Press Start, type PowerShell, right click Windows PowerShell, choose Run as administrator, then accept the prompt. In the PowerShell window run these two commands, one at a time, pressing Enter after each:

    taskkill /f /im AccountHost.exe

    Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

    Restart the PC. Go to Settings > Accounts > Your info and choose Sign in with a Microsoft account instead, then try again to sign in with your personal Microsoft account. After you can open and complete that sign-in, try the ESU enroll flow once more.

    If the sign-in window still blinks and closes after this repair, tell me. The next step would be to clear a leftover work account link in one place inside Accounts that can keep hijacking the broker, but I want to keep us on one clean fix at a time.

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