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New requirements for checking saved passwords. I do not have a Windows password

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  • Last reply by McCoy

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Firefox 76 is asking for a Windows password in order to read my saved passwords. This is impossible as I do not use a password on starting Windows (8.1). What can I do as this is a feature I need to be able to use?

Firefox 76 is asking for a Windows password in order to read my saved passwords. This is impossible as I do not use a password on starting Windows (8.1). What can I do as this is a feature I need to be able to use?

Chosen solution

Do you want to try setting a Master Password? The Windows password isn't used in that case.

IMPORTANT: Do not forget your Master Password or you will no longer be able to access your saved logins.

More info in this article: Use a Primary Password to protect stored logins and passwords.

Does that work for you?

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (7)

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Chosen Solution

Do you want to try setting a Master Password? The Windows password isn't used in that case.

IMPORTANT: Do not forget your Master Password or you will no longer be able to access your saved logins.

More info in this article: Use a Primary Password to protect stored logins and passwords.

Does that work for you?

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Hmm, setting a Master Password also requires a Windows password. So probably for the time being you should turn off the integration with Windows as follows, so you can set a Master Password without that requirement:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste os-auth and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the signon.management.page.os-auth.enabled preference to switch the value from true to false

Note that this bypass is not expected to last indefinitely; it's available now for working around implementation glitches and will probably be removed a couple versions down the road.

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox.

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Thank you very much, that seems to have solved the problem.

Should I now put the "os-auth.enabled" setting back to "true" now that the master password has been set?

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Edit:. I tried it and nothing untoward seems to have happened, but would still appreciate confirmation that doing that is OK.

Modified by albertd

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Hi albertd, yes, once you have a Master Password, you can safely return the other setting to its default value of true.

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Thank you very much.

regards

Albert (in England) 1624 local time

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According to Lockwise's own page, you should not be asked for a Windows password if you don't use one (scroll to the bottom of this page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lockwise-password-authentication-prompt). But that is clearly not the case.

I don't have a Windows password (Windows 10) -- no need for one as it's a desktop and I live alone -- but Lockwise persists in asking for one.

I don't want to set a Master Password.

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Averill Buchanan said

According to Lockwise's own page, you should not be asked for a Windows password if you don't use one (scroll to the bottom of this page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lockwise-password-authentication-prompt). But that is clearly not the case.

The above posted link doesn't work.

Here's the link without the right parenthesis :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lockwise-password-authentication-prompt