Windows 8 picture password

If you've got a good, strong password (as a systems administrator,
you certainly should!), you have probably noticed that it takes you
considerably longer to log in on a tablet device than it would to do so
on a regular PC. Microsoft has aimed to give us a "fast and fluid" way
of logging into our devices with the new picture password login in
Windows 8.Two elements are involved with the picture password login. The first
is a picture selected by the user; Microsoft intentionally hasn't
provided a selection of images for this, as selecting your own picture
increases both security and memorability of the picture password. The
second element is a set of "gestures" that the user makes on or around
the selected image. These gestures can be a combination of circles,
lines, and taps. The circle and line gestures also offer an additional
layer of security, as the direction of these gestures must be correct in order to successfully authenticate.
To create a picture password for your account, select "settings" from the charms bar. You can get to the charms bar by pointing to one of the right corners of the display. Windows 8 charms bar – More PC settings
On the settings panel to the right, select "More PC settings." This
will take you to the new Metro control panel app. When the app starts,
select "Users" from the list on the left of the screen. You should then
see various options related to your user account. About halfway down
these options on the right, you will see a button labelled "Create a
picture password." Click this button to start the picture password
wizard.
Windows 8 PC settings
Once the picture password wizard has started, the first thing you
will need to do is select a picture to use. I would recommend a photo of decent resolution. For my example, I used the 4sysops logo; however,
Windows scaled it up to fit the screen, so it ended up looking quite
pixelated. You'll notice the new Metro-based file browser is used when
you are selecting your picture.
Windows 8 picture password – Choose picture
After you select your image, you will need to make 3 gestures around
it. As mentioned before, these can include circles, lines, and taps.
Once you have made your gestures, you will have to make them again, just so the system knows that you got it right (in the same way you always
need to type a new password twice).
Windows 8 picture password – Set up your gestures
If you manage to perform the same gestures to a satisfactory accuracy the second time, Windows will save the picture password for your
account. Next time you log in, you will be presented with your image to
perform your gestures on. Should you forget your gestures (as I promptly did!), you can still fall back to a regular password-based login and
set up your picture password again.
Audit who changed what, where and when
in your IT infrastructure
    * Active Directory
    * Exchange & mailboxes (new)
    * File Servers
    * SharePoint
    * VMware
    * Logon events (new)
    * Windows server configuration
    * Network Devices and more
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While picture passwords may make logging in quicker and easier for
end users, this might not be something that systems administrators like
the sound of! I expect it's easier to obtain a user's touch gestures on
an image from watching over their shoulder than it would be to do the
same with a traditional password-based login. Windows 8 provides a new
group policy object (GPO) to allow administrators to prevent users from
using this feature:
Computer configuration-> Administrative Templates-> System-> Logon-> Turn off PIN and Picture password logon
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