Windows 11 is quietly removing one of its more unusual login methods, picture passwords. Microsoft has stopped allowing users to create new ones, although anyone who already has one configured can continue using it.
Picture passwords first appeared with Windows 8, back when Microsoft was betting heavily on touchscreens. Instead of typing a password, you could draw a sequence of taps, circles, or lines over a chosen image. In theory, it was a more intuitive way to unlock a touchscreen PC.
In practice, it was never exactly a security breakthrough. People tend to choose gestures around obvious parts of an image, while fingerprints and smudges on a touchscreen can potentially reveal where someone is touching repeatedly. That makes the feature considerably less attractive compared with modern authentication methods.
Microsoft is now recommending Windows Hello PINs, facial recognition and fingerprint authentication instead. Passkeys are also central to Microsoft’s broader push toward passwordless authentication, although they aren’t currently a direct replacement for the Windows login screen.
There’s one important catch for anyone still using a picture password. Don’t remove it if you want to keep it. Once a picture password is deleted or disabled, Windows won’t let you create another one. The same applies if you never had one configured in the first place.
The change arrives with the July 2026 Windows 11 security update, effectively marking the beginning of the end for a login feature that has survived since the Windows 8 era.