Remote-Desktop via Microsoft-Account with no password

MirandaVeracruz 96

Hey guys,

I'm just trying to use the "passwordless account"-feature of my Microsoft account, but when I tried to use RDP it seems not to work yet. I'm logged in with my Microsoft-account on both devices (Windows 11 Pro) but RDP is asking for a password instead of triggering to acknowledge the logon via my mobile device.

Any ideas?

Regards
thno

Michael Tierney 1 Reputation point

2022-01-18T23:35:43.13+00:00

Miranda,

I feel your pain and am had the same experience once converting both my MS accounts to passwordless with the use of an authenticator phone app. After sifting through all the "how do I login to my machine without having to enter a password" posts to get to this actual issue, before arriving at this post thread. I'm upset but not really surprised there's no true way to login or access a system via RDP with a passwordless account scenario. My only recourse and suggestion - and forgive me if this is too obvious - was/is to create a local administrator account on the system you need remote access to and logon that way. It worked for me and isn't ideal since the local admin account is using a different user profile, but I can access the box remotely.
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बाषी मनडल 0 Reputation points

2023-05-21T01:40:46.95+00:00

Mr.Mithun

20 answers

Daniel Martin 66 Reputation points

2021-11-11T20:29:16.827+00:00

I found a workaround for anyone interested.

From the MS Account Security Dashboard, turn Off passwordless account, and set up a new password.
On the device you are trying to log into (if you set it up without a password during install at least) reboot and click "Forgot PIN"

From the recovery screen, choose to log in with a password, do so.
When it prompts you to change your PIN just click cancel. It will log you in to the device, and now associate the password with the device.

You should now be able to RDP in with the newly set password.

Looks like they know it's an issue too. Typical.

It doesn't accomplish using passwordless auth, but it does associate a password to a device that was initially set up passwordless, and makes RDP usable again.
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13 people found this answer helpful.
Paulina Acosta 6 Reputation points

2022-01-13T04:11:14.757+00:00

This is exactly what I needed! Apparently, after activating passwordless Microsoft account its messed up with remote desktop even after turning it off. But this solved it for now. Thanks.

Seb Schaf 1 Reputation point

2022-04-11T08:07:25.687+00:00

Worked also for me. Did set up a Win11 VM on my NAS directly with my MS account and PIN.
This resulted that I am not able to access Win11 from my Mac via RDP using the original MS RDP App.
This Hack here helped that the local Win11 System gets to know the PW. Exactly what I needed. Thank you

hua yang 1 Reputation point

2022-06-09T01:18:32.433+00:00

Exactly what I need to make RDP work again after disable passwordless

Mark Stammers 1 Reputation point

2022-07-25T12:18:32.487+00:00

Doesn’t this require you to go back to using a password on your MS account, because if does then that gets away with being passwordless. The whole point of this thread is to find a way of getting RDP to work with a passwordless account, not to get people to go back to using a password to get RDP to work, especially when other services are available eg Google Remote Desktop. Also since going passwordless my pc is unable to sign in automatically, it now comes up with an error saying wrong password. Wouldn’t creating a app password possibly help fix the problem?

Simon Brown 6 Reputation points

2022-09-27T18:35:50.023+00:00

Just want to say thanks to DanielMartin, this worked a treat. I signed out, clicked forgot my pin. I then entered the password and completed the authenticator 2FA, cancelled the prompt to change the PIN and it signed in using the password. After that RDP worked using the password since it's now 'cached'.

Neal Gray 6 Reputation points

2022-12-07T15:15:18.96+00:00

Thanks Simon, this worked perfectly, liked your clarification. Didn't want to turn off passwordless, but just did as you suggested and RDP is now working.
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@CmdrKeene 101 Reputation points

2022-04-09T21:31:03.323+00:00

There's been a workaround for this for 7 years now, but it's been a bit of a secret you have to search the web to find. I was motivated to post the true solution to try to share the knowledge, please check out Remote Desktop with Microsoft Account Sign-In.
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4 people found this answer helpful.
Paolo Barone 16 Reputation points

2022-04-12T14:44:34.737+00:00

This does not work if you switched your Microsoft account to be passwordless though

objecttothis 1 Reputation point

2022-05-05T08:31:13.38+00:00

Solution 1 on this link worked for me and I'm using passwordless login. runas /u:MicrosoftAccount\[accountEmail] winver on the host computer. I was then able to RDP from the remote computer using my password.

yuorfaec 1 Reputation point

2022-11-07T08:16:43.197+00:00

worked for me!

Dustin Loftis 0 Reputation points

2023-05-27T04:40:00.8466667+00:00

Fixed my RDP issue on Windows 11; thanks.
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Mike Schallmo 16 Reputation points

2021-11-04T14:01:28.03+00:00

I'm in the same boat here. Upgraded my personal desktop to Windows 11 and converted my account to passwordless. Now I can't RDP to my desktop any longer as it continues to ask for a non-existent password.

Very frustrating!
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3 people found this answer helpful.
Paulina Acosta 6 Reputation points

2022-01-13T04:01:50.523+00:00

Im having the same issue, did you find any solutions?
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MirandaVeracruz 96 Reputation points

2021-10-19T09:40:43.45+00:00

@JohanEriksson - not sure if we're talking about the same thing :-)

Are you aware of the new Microsoft-Account feature "passwordless account"? Here you do not have a password. Logon-requests need to be allowed via Authenticator-App. In case of RDP I'd expect that RDP-Client triggers a push-notification in my Authenticator-App. I'm not sure if enabling the policy to allow blank passwords is useful regarding security...

Cheers
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2 people found this answer helpful.
Emil Alipiev 271 Reputation points

2022-09-11T10:07:05.937+00:00

it doesnt trigger anything. Microsoft seems to made a half job again as usual. it causes a lot of issues.
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MirandaVeracruz 96 Reputation points

2021-11-02T09:56:24.073+00:00

yes...mildly infuriating :-)
I absolutely agree! There are tons of new fancy features, but they forget the basics!
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2 people found this answer helpful.

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