How to: Keep Num Lock On After Startup on Windows 10

Windows 10 has been plagued by tons of different problems ever since it was introduced, and for many users – especially users who upgraded to Windows 10 from an older version of the OS – chief among these problems is one which turns the Num Lock off every time an affected computer shuts down, resulting in the Num Lock not being automatically turned on at startup. Where applicable, users affected by this issue have reported that they continued to suffer from this issue even though Num Lock was set to be turned on at startup in their computer’s BIOS.

Working around this problem is pretty easy – all you need to do is press the Num Lock key on your keyboard once your computer boots up, and the Num Lock will be turned on, but what purpose do computers serve us if not our convenience? This problem is not a question of how easily an affected user can work around it but of why affected users are unable to enjoy the small but highly significant pleasure of having their Num Lock automatically turned on for them when their computer boots up.

This problem is a matter of user convenience, making it an issue of the highest priority. The possible causes for this problem are pretty much all over the board – from Fast Startup to Windows 10 trying to turn the Num Lock on when it is already on, resulting in it being turned off, or something completely unrelated. The following are the three most effective solutions that have managed to resolve this problem for most of the Windows 10 users who have been victimized by this problem in the past:

Solution 1: Disable Fast Startup

Fast Startup is a neat little feature that was introduced with Windows 8 – a feature that, when a computer shuts down, loads the active Windows kernel and all loaded drivers into the hiberfile (hiberfil.sys: the same file used by the Hibernate option). The next time the computer boots up, contents of the hiberfile are loaded into the computer’s RAM, effectively cutting down the time it takes the computer to boot up by about half. However, Fast Startup can sometime do more harm than good as it not only causes Windows 10 to not unmount its HDD/SSD when shutting down but is also one of the leading causes of this issue.

Disabling Fast Startup is undoubtedly the most effective solution capable of fixing this issue, although it results in the loss of the Fast Startup feature altogether. To disable Fast Startup, you need to:

1. Right-click on the Start Menu button to open the WinX Menu.
2. Click on Power Options in the WinX Menu.
3. Click on Choose what the power buttons do / Choose what the power button does in the left pane.
4. Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable.
5. Near the bottom of the window, uncheck the checkbox beside Turn on fast startup (recommended) to disable Fast Startup.
6. Click on Save changes.
7. Close the System Settings
8. Restart your computer.
9. At startup, check to see whether or not the Num Lock is turned on when you get to the login screen.

If the steps listed and described above fail to disable Fast Startup (which is a pretty unlikely scenario), simply right-click on the Start Menu button to open the WinX Menu, click on Command Prompt (Admin), type the following into the elevated Command Prompt and press Enter:

powercfg -h off

Once this command has been executed successfully, the hiberfile used by both Hibernate and Fast Startup will be deleted, ultimately disabling both of these features and also freeing up as much disk space on your HDD/SSD as the amount of RAM that your computer has.

Solution 2: Fix the problem by tweaking your computer’s Registry

If Solution 1 doesn’t work or if you simply don’t want to sacrifice Fast Startup to resolve this problem, fear not as another extremely effective resolution to this problem that you can use is to fix the issue by tweaking certain aspects of your computer’s Registry via the Registry Editor. In order to use this solution, you need to:

Press the Windows Logo key + R to open a Run

Type regedit into the Run dialog and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.

In the left pane of the Registry Editor, navigate to the following directory:

HKEY_USERS > .Default > Control Panel

In the left pane of the Registry Editor, click on Keyboard to have the registry key’s contents displayed in the right pane.

In the right pane, locate and double-click on a registry value named InitialKeyboardIndicators to modify it.

Replace whatever is in the registry value’s Value data field with 2147483648.

Click on OK.

Exit the Registry Editor and restart your computer.

At startup, check to see whether or not the Num Lock is turned on when you get to the login screen.

Note: If, once your computer restarts, you see that Num Lock isn’t turned on at the login screen, repeat each and every single one of the steps listed and described above, but this time, when you get to step 6, replace whatever is in the Value data field of the InitialKeyboardIndicators registry value with 2147483650 instead of 2147483648. This has worked for many a Windows 10 user troubled by this problem that weren’t able to fix it using the steps listed and described above, especially users who were experiencing this problem on HP computers.

Solution 3: Turn the Num Lock off in your computer’s BIOS

A few Windows 10 users affected by this issue have found that the issue is caused because Windows 10 tries to turn Num Lock on, but since it is already turned on as it is configured to be in the affected computers’ BIOS settings, the result is the Num Lock being turned on. If this is what is causing this problem in your case, you need to simply turn the Num Lock off in your computer’s BIOS. In order to do so, you need to:

Shut your computer down.

Boot your computer up.

Boot into your computer’s BIOS – instructions for doing so (the key that needs to be pressed in order to access the computer’s BIOS, to be more precise) can be found on the very first screen that you see when your computer tries to boot up.

Once in your computer’s BIOS, search through all of the available tabs for an option that dictates whether or not the Num Lock is to be turned on at startup.

Disable this option.

Exit the BIOS but remember to save your changes while doing so.

Allow your computer to boot up, and see whether or not the Num Lock turns on once you get to the login screen.