Set NumLock to be ON

Stephan Pringle Friday, August 1, 2025

When a machine joins a domain, the interactive logon screen (Winlogon) may ignore BIOS/UEFI NumLock state and instead follow Group Policy or registry defaults. This affects password entry if your credentials rely on the number pad. Below, I will show you how to set NumLock to be ON at logon (Domain or Not) to avoid locking your account.

Command Prompt (Requires PowerShell 2.0 and later)
powershell "Set-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Keyboard' -Name 'InitialKeyboardIndicators' -Value '2'"

PowerShell 2.0 and later
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Keyboard' -Name 'InitialKeyboardIndicators' -Value '2'

0 = NumLock OFF, CapsLock OFF, ScrollLock OFF
1 = NumLock OFF, CapsLock ON, ScrollLock OFF
2 = NumLock ON, CapsLock OFF, ScrollLock OFF
3 = NumLock ON, CapsLock ON, ScrollLock OFF
2147483648 = NumLock ON (Certain domain configurations use this special bitmask for compatibility and to persist the NumLock state across logons.)

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Stephan Pringle

About The Author: Stephan Pringle is an Information Technology Support Specialist. He covers hardware and software and provides tips for you to troubleshoot and repair issues on your own. In his spare time, he writes articles about the State of New York on his Hackintosh and HackBook and that has helped him to become the top contributor of the New York City section of Yahoo! Answers.

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