14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 10 October 2018 Update, or version 1809, is one of the buggiest releases in a long time for Microsoft.
Not only that the update was pulled only a few days after the original launch due to a data removal bug, but it still experiences all kinds of issues that could make some users skip this release altogether.
One of the most recent bugs concerns the facial recognition system in Windows Hello, the biometric authentication app that comes built-in to Windows 10.
By the looks of things, users trying to set up Windows Hello not only that fail to do so, but also get locked in the configuration screen with no option to cancel.
Microsoft has already acknowledged the problem and now lists it as a “known issue,” but for the time being, there’s absolutely no ETA as to when a fix could be shipped to users.
The software giant describes the behavior of the issue in a technical advisory published this week:
“On the Set up Windows Hello page of the Windows Setup process, you select Use face recognition and then select Set up. On the next page, you cancel the setup process by selecting the "x" character in the upper right corner of the photo preview window. Windows returns you to the Set up Windows Hello page, and you select Use face recognition > Set up again.
Instead of the photo preview window, you see a blank (all black or all white) page.”
The workaround isn’t necessarily rocket science, but it’s riddled with other issues that users might experience when trying to close the Windows Hello configuration screen.
Obviously, the first thing that comes to one’s mind is to press the close button (the small X in the top right corner) to exit the configuration screen. But as Microsoft itself says, there are moments when this close button does not show up, so you need to try out a different method.
Pressing Alt + F4 should do the trick, Microsoft says, but this only works if the window itself isn’t locked or unresponsive. I’d say the best option in this case is to press Ctrl + Alt + Del and then force-close the Windows Hello configuration screen altogether. If you want to restart the Windows Hello setup, you can do it again after the window closes.
And yet, there’s another problem here too. After closing the Windows Hello configuration screen, you need to wait for the camera indicator LEDs to turn off because this is the moment when you can re-initialize the configuration of this feature. But in some cases, the LEDs keep flashing.
“On most PCs, indicator LEDs flash while the camera and the infrared illumination system is active. After you cancel the Setup process, these LEDs continue to flash for a few seconds. This flashing indicates that the system is not ready to restart,” Microsoft says. In this case, you need to wait for the LEDs to turn off. If they don’t, your only option is to reboot your computer, and I think you should do this from the very beginning, especially if you force-close the Windows Hello window.
While this isn’t necessarily a critical bug in Windows 10, it’s one that can become very frustrating, especially because Windows Hello is a key feature of the operating system. Windows Hello requires dedicated hardware, and needless to say, some people purchase new laptops and PCs specifically with compatible cameras in order to use this feature.
There’s no ETA as to when a fix would land, but in the meantime, you can use the steps here to cancel the configuration process and reinitialize it from the get-go.