Signing into Local Account at settings header

I had my Windows 10 all set up the way I like it with Privacy settings tweaked, a theme, etc. When I did a recent update to Windows 10 I see that I now have a header in Settings with the choices: My Username with Local Account listed and sign in, Windows Update with when I last checked and Rewards with a number of Rewards I have.

I decided to see what happen if I signed into my username local account. When I did that my computer seem to go back to some original settings telling me: We're settings things up. When this was all done my theme was completely gone, my start menu was at factory settings, all the apps that I uninstalled were back, my privacy settings were back to factory settings and I can't find Control Panel under Window Systems in the program line up and it took away Explorer.exe from the taskbar which is the folder that used to be called Windows Explorer. I think it's called File Explorer now. I also had my Microsoft Outlook email as an account in the account section of settings.

It's like I just bought the computer and it needed a complete setup again.

Anyhow I had to uninstall the apps I did not use, setup a new theme, find legacy Control Panel, fix my taskbar. What a hassle.

So is this suppose to happen when you sign into your Local account in Settings?

Note: I did sign out of the Microsoft account and got rid of that and I am back at Local Account Administrator again afterwards.

That sounds like Windows helpfully set up a new user account for you, with all of the default settings just the way Microsoft likes them. Check the User Accounts in Control Panel to see how many it shows are there.

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Originally Posted by jdc2000

That sounds like Windows helpfully set up a new user account for you, with all of the default settings just the way Microsoft likes them. Check the User Accounts in Control Panel to see how many it shows are there.

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No other account just the one that I always use. Maybe there was another account before I signed in with a local account afterwards. But no, no other account and I don't need a password on startup. I was just upset that I had to redo all my settings back to where I had them. Heck I won't do that again. But I wish I was warned about this before I did this. Imagine if you did this to a customer's computer.

And no, it wasn't helpful. Only helpful that I learned something.

If that option appears again, take a screen capture and post it here. I have not heard of any other reports of Microsoft resetting an existing user account's settings, unless you actually select an option to restore Windows settings.

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Originally Posted by jdc2000

If that option appears again, take a screen capture and post it here. I have not heard of any other reports of Microsoft resetting an existing user account's settings, unless you actually select an option to restore Windows settings.

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It was quite shocking just like if I just installed Windows 10 with the Welcome screen. Pretty upsetting too.

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Originally Posted by jonnyb

It was quite shocking just like if I just installed Windows 10 with the Welcome screen. Pretty upsetting too.

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Here is the screen shot. Where I have the arrow where it says Local Account is where I signed in. This was on a laptop I have. On my laptop it now says Local Account and Administrator as well. The screen shot here is from my desktop computer but it is the same shot except for the word Administrator. Looks like this is an inline photo here: Attachment 15448

If you can see the Settings window, you are already signed in to Windows, so you can just ignore that bogus request to sign in, since you are already signed in. This has annoyed numerous users according to what I have found. Note that I have not seen this, however, all but 3 of my Windows 10 computers use the Enterprise version.

Some possibly useful links:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-8435a5b41045

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...0-f38be00ddb00

https://winaero.com/force-enable-win...gs-top-header/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/c..._settings_app/

A local account is a user name and password that you use to sign in to only a single Windows PC. This is the same type of user account that was used in Vista and Windows 7.

A Microsoft account is an email address and password that you can use to sign in to Microsoft services and all Windows 8/10 PCs and devices.

So, before all this started was your "user name" a name or an email address?

My username was not an email address just a user with no password at all for Windows. I just signed into this one laptop just to see what this sign in does. I used my .Live account from Outlook to do the signing into this laptop.

I have 6 Windows 10 computers and I don't use passwords on startup. They just go on when I turn them on.

Ya know there are too many sign ins on computers. Chrome has one to sync all the favorites and stuff, Windows logon to start Windows, Edge has one and now a Settings login. Getting tired of it.

Yeah I never should of done the sign in to the Settings header but I did want to know what it would do. So I was just experimenting like I always do to learn stuff.

I have a few computers that does not have the header with the sign in at the top of Settings as well. All of them are currently updated so why some would have the header and why some don't I have no clue.

Anyhow the excitement goes on.

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why some would have the header and why some don't

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Microsoft uses you as a beta tester. Some new test "features" get pushed out to some computers and not others.

But they won't tell us that they are doing that will they? Are they using us as experiments like IG Farben, freund?

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But they won't tell us that they are doing that will they?

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No, that is why you need to follow various tech blogs such as ZDNet or others to find out what they are doing. They don't tell their users anything.

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Are they using us as experiments like IG Farben, freund?

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Yes, they are.

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Originally Posted by jdc2000

No, that is why you need to follow various tech blogs such as ZDNet or others to find out what they are doing. They don't tell their users anything.



Yes, they are.

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I do watch some of TechSupportForum.com as well as I am on Leo Notenboom's newsletter. I will look at ZDNet so thanks.