FIX: You Can’t Sign In To Your PC Right Now Error on Windows 8 and 10

Windows 8 introduced a completely new way for Windows users to sign into their computers, and this method requires the use of Microsoft accounts (which are basically just Microsoft email addresses) and their passwords to sign into computers. Microsoft accounts are a sign in option on both Windows 8.1 and 10 – the two versions of the Windows Operating System that have been introduced to the world after Windows 8. However, sometimes, when signing into a computer running on Windows 8 or later through a Microsoft account and its password, a user may receive an error message which reads “You can’t sign in to your PC right now.” To elaborate, the entire error message that users affected by this issue see reads:

“You can’t sign in to your PC right now. Go to account.live.com to fix the problem, or try the last password you used on this PC.”

Now this error message would obviously lead an affected user to believe that they have been faced with it because they have entered the wrong password to their Microsoft account one too many times. However, that is not the case as this error message affects Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 and can be triggered by everything from the user entering the wrong password to their Microsoft account or a pretty common bug that gives birth to this error message.

Thankfully, though, this problem is fixable. But, before you move on to trying and fixing this issue, make sure that you rule out the usual culprits behind this issue by trying to enter the correct password for your Microsoft account a couple more times, making sure that the Caps Lock is off and, if the password includes numbers and you are using the numeric keypad to type those numbers in, the Num Lock is on.

If you have ruled out all of the usual suspects and are still faced with this problem, the following are the two most effective methods that can be used to fix it:

Solution 1: Restart your computer and wait 10-20 seconds before signing in

A prevailing theory about the cause of this problem is an affected user’s password being registered incorrectly or incompletely. This can, in many cases, be the cause of this issue, especially when the affected user has a wireless keyboard. It can take a wireless keyboard a good few seconds to establish a reliable connection to a computer once it boots up, which is why your password may be registered incompletely or incorrectly if you start typing it in as soon as your computer boots up.

To make sure that’s not the case, simply restart your computer and wait 10-20 seconds once it boots up before trying to sign into it through your Microsoft account by typing in your Microsoft account’s password. Or better yet, use the On-Screen Keyboard (which can be launched by clicking on Ease of Access > On-Screen Keyboard on the sign-in screen) to type in the password for your Microsoft account, just to be certain that this problem is not being caused by a keyboard issue.

Solution 2: Reset your Microsoft account’s password

If nothing else seems to work, there is no need to resort to reinstalling Windows on your computer (that should be your last resort) as there is an extremely good chance that you will be able to fix this issue by resetting your Microsoft account’s password using another computer and then signing into the computer affected by this problem with your new password, like most of the other users who have been in the same situation you are in right now. If you want to use this solution to fix this issue, you need to:

Go here on a different computer, a computer you can successfully sign in to and use.

Select I forgot my password and click on Next.

Type the email address or phone number associated with your Microsoft account into the Email or phone field on the next page, type in the Captcha underneath it and click on Next.

Select the medium through which you would like to get the security code that you can use to reset your Microsoft account’s password (this can be anything from an email to your account’s recovery email address to a text/call to the phone number associated with your account), verify the medium if yours (if necessary), and click on Send code.

Enter the password reset code you receive into the Code field on the next screen, and then click on Next.

Type your new password into both fields on the next screen (the password must be different from all the passwords you have used for the Microsoft account in the past) and click on Next.

The next screen will inform you that the password for your Microsoft account has been changed. Once you see this screen, close the browser and move back to the computer that is affected by this issue.

Boot up the affected computer.

Sign into the computer through your Microsoft account using the new password that you have set for it, and you should be able to sign in to the computer successfully without seeing any error messages.