[Fix] Wrong Keyboard Layout at the Sign-in Screen

On some systems, the default keyboard layout may change when you’re at the sign-in screen. For instance, you may have a US keyboard layout when you’re logged in to your account. If you switch to the sign-in screen, it may use a different keyboard input — e.g., a UK keyboard. This can cause trouble with special characters in the password.

If you have a Windows 10 or 11 account password containing the ‘#’ character, on a UK keyboard, it is a separate key immediately left of the “Enter” key. If the sign-in screen uses the US keyboard layout, you may be unable to log in as it does not recognize the key you press as being ‘#’ but an apostrophe (!). Whereas ‘#’ is ‘Shift + 3’ on the US keyboard setup.

• Before Logon; en-UK
• After Logon; en-US

Windows then asks you to set up a PIN. After that, your PC finishes setting up, and the keyboard may revert to my original setting as a UK keyboard setup.

Since most of the special characters are on different keys, logging in is difficult, unless you have the option to switch the keyboard layout at the sign-in screen. Service desks may receive a high number of calls about users unable to log in to their devices due to a wrong password.

This may have happened after installing a recent cumulative update.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, copy your input language settings to the logon desktop—i.e., the sign-in screen. Follow the steps below.

1. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog.
2. Type intl.cpl and click OK. This opens the Region settings in the classic Control Panel.
3. Select the “Administrative” tab.
   
   
4. Click “Copy settings”.
5. Enable the two checkboxes, “Welcome screen and system accounts” and “New user accounts.”
   
6. Click OK.

The above steps copy the display language, keyboard input language, format, and country settings to the logon screen and the new user accounts. The language settings for the sign-in screen are stored in the [HKEY_USERS\.Default] registry branch.

(The above steps also prevent unwanted keyboard layouts from being added to the language bar in your user profile. Ref: How to remove Unwanted Locale (Keyboard) from the Language Bar.)