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Windows Hello is in 10130

Author by Shannon Fritz

Microsoft just released Windows 10 build 10130 to the Fast ring of Windows Update and they've enabled some of the new biometric and gesture based unlocking features called Windows Hello. If you haven't heard about this before, check out the brief 4min video on Joe Belfiore's blog post introducing Windows Hello from about 2 months ago.

If you installed 10122 before, you may have noticed that you couldn't use your fingerprint reader to log in. This is because biometrics are now part of Hello, and it is NOT a "password stuffer" like we've seen in the past. Instead, it is a relationship between the hardware in your computer, and the PIN or gesture (a fingerprint in this case) to unlock. It's very similar to the way Virtual Smart Cards work, and in fact some were calling it "VSC++" before it had a name. In build 10130, this feature is now available for fingerprint readers, and support for facial recognition is coming later.

Configuring Hello is pretty straight forward from Settings -> Accounts -> Sign-in Options. It requires you to set a PIN by first entering your password for your Domain account and your Microsoft Account (if you've added that already), then you set a PIN and swipe your finger a couple times. After that, you can swipe your finger at the login screen to get in.

Settings_Hello

I've already got my Intel RealSense 3D Camera (the F200 model) and am eagerly awaiting the availability of the facial recognition and Microsoft Passport features!

Author

Shannon Fritz

Infrastructure Architect & Server Team Lead