Windows 8 has has a feature called password pictures where you can login to your Windows account by performing certain gestures on a picture. If you would not like this feature to be available for your users, you can disable it via a group policy. To disable this feature, please follow the steps below.
Note: If you are not using Windows 8 Professional or Enterprise you will not have access to the group policy editor. Instead you should follow the instructions here.
To access the Group Policy Editor in Windows 8, you should type Group Policy in the Start Screen and then click on the Settings category. The option for Edit Group Policy should now appear. Click on the Edit Group Policy option and the Group Policy editor will open. Under Local Computer Policy expand the tree to the following path:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon
When you see Logon select it so that the screen looks like the following:
In the right-hand pane you should now see a variety of settings. Double-click on the Turn off picture password sign-insetting and its properties screen will open.
Though the policy description states that this will disable the picture password for domain users, it will also disable it for non-domain users.
Select the Enabled radio button and then click on the Apply button. Finally click on the OK button and close the Group Policy Editor. The password picture logon feature will now be disabled in Windows 8.
If you are not using Windows 8 Professional or Enterprise you will not have access to the Group Policy Editor. Instead you will need to enable the setting through the Windows Registry. This setting can be enabled by creating theBlockDomainPicturePassword REG_DWORD value under theHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System Registry key and setting it to 1.
Note: You should only use these Registry files if you do not have access to the Group Policy Editor.
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