Many laptops are now equipped with a fingerprint reader, a useful feature if you lock/unlock your computer on a regular basis. However, for some reason, Windows requires to set up a PIN, even if you already have a password. The PIN is supposedly secure since it uses your laptop’s TPM module, but authentication using the password remains possible anyway, so why allow a PIN in the first place?

It is not possible (to the best of my knowledge) to disable the PIN requirement, but you can remove it from your login screen using regedit. Go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\Credential Providers\{D6886603-9D2F-4EB2-B667-1971041FA96B

Create a new DWORD value named Disabled and set it to 1. Alternatively, you can find on my GitHub gist a registry script that will do that for you (save it and execute it).

If you need to edit your fingerprints, please note you will need to enable PIN authentication temporarily (set Disabled to 0).