Ask a new question

Windows Hello suddenly became unavailable

I have enjoyed Windows Hellos face recognition very much, however, suddenly the feature were unavailable, I believe it was after a Windows Update where it installed the latest firmware drivers. There is simply no Windows Hello section under sign-in options. I also get the error message saying "Couldn't turn on the camera. Please sign in with your pin" when I have to sign in.

I have tried the following:

  • Installing the MSI package for Surface 4
  • Uninstalling the Surface Camera Windows Hello driver and restart so it gets reinstalled (version 1.0.24.0)
  • Hard rebooting
  • Creating another local user to check if it was account specific
  • Change my pin 
  • Uninstall the latest windows update

Any suggestions?

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

Hello SorenML,

 

The last thing to do would be to run one of the recovery options and if these don't help I would recommend contacting the Surface Support for device exchange.

 

Best Regards

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hi Jam,

Thank you for your reply. I am actually considering if it could be some organization settings that are not configured correctly, is this something I can see/test? I noticed the option for removing pin is not available as well. (see image)

1 person found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hello!

This may sound a bit repetition but it's worth trying after an update.

Simply restart the device using restart option and see if it changes anything.

3 people found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I've just started seeing this issue (though I still have the facility to remove my PIN).  When I checked the Windows Hello camera in Device Manager it was showing a status of "No drivers are installed for this device." even though the driver details were available and an update check showed that the latest drivers are installed.

What I ended up doing was uninstalling the device from Device Manager and then re-adding it using Action->Add legacy hardware and that seemed to do the trick.

9 people found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I've had this a couple of times, but it fixed itself after a reboot. You could try the UFEI reboot (hold down volume-up while holding the power button down for 20-30 secs. I'm told that this can fix some issues.

18 people found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hello.  I'm also having the same trouble. I have conducted the "recovery" options and the issue persists. It appears to have broken after the latest batch of updates. 

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

THIS WORKED. Thank you. Suddenly facial recognition stopped working with the unhelpful "Couldn't turn on camera..." message and Hello settings blanked out too. Unistalling the front IR camera and adding legacy hardware solved the problem instantly.

2 people found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

What if you download these drivers for the Surface camera windows hello?

This also works if there is no "Rollback" option/greyed out.


http://download.windowsupdate.com/d/msdownload/update/driver/drvs/2016/06/200020987_471a6b2e4156ffb9aa9e90311256433a7c9c48c4.cab

(3/11/2016, version 1.0.45.0 175 KB

1 person found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I'd tried all of these suggestion, but all prior rivers deleted w/last update. Ready to give up & wait, but tried this download. Finally back to March 2016 driver and Facial Recognition works. Thanks.

1 person found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Thank You!

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

 
 

Question Info

Last updated February 8, 2023 Views 16,915 Applies to: