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I have my boot drive encrypted with BitLocker, and have configured it to require a PIN upon boot to continue with the boot process. As my PIN is numeric, I would like to be able to use my keyboard's numpad to enter my PIN.

Unfortunately, it seems Microsoft decided to explicitly disable Num Lock by default in the BitLocker boot environment. I have confirmed this by attempting to toggle Num Lock's default state in my BIOS without any luck.

From Microsoft's FAQ on BitLocker, I would conjecture this is for compatibility reasons (e.g. tenkeyless keyboards, some laptops, etc.), and it seems Microsoft prefers the approach of using the F1-F10 keys instead:

Why do I have to use the function keys to enter the PIN or the 48-character recovery password?

The F1 through F10 keys are universally mapped scancodes available in the pre-operating-system environment on all computers and in all languages. The numeric keys 0 through 9 are not usable in the pre-operating system environment on all keyboards.

I can certainly understand Microsoft's stance on this, but this limitation does not exactly apply to my situation. While there is nothing stopping me from manually enabling Num Lock and proceeding with entering my PIN, it is an inconvenience (albeit a minor one) to remember to do so.

From searching around, I see it can be set once booted to Windows, but I can't find anything relevant to the BitLocker prompt itself. Is there a way to configure this somewhere that I'm missing?

Community
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Brian
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2 Answers2

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The default behavior appears to have changed since I originally asked this. I had to decrypt my system for a while to troubleshoot an unrelated issue, and before reencrypting, I've updated to the Creators Update (version 1703) from the Anniversary Update (version 1607). I've observed that Num Lock now appears to be enabled by default.

It was not quite the answer I was looking for since I'm still unsure of what prompted this subtle change in behavior, but this has nonetheless resolved the spirit of my issue.

Peter Mortensen
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Brian
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The Creators Update changed Num Lock to be enabled by default. My notebook keyboard has a "simulated numeric keypad" that I personally hate, since my passwords are mostly alphabetical (with some symbols); I find this to be very annoying.

I hope Microsoft adds some way to change this behaviour, at least by editing some registry key or something.

Peter Mortensen
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Facundo
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