"Email a code" settings question

T

tehuti88

A few days ago, for some reason Windows asked me to provide my PIN to prove it was me, after I'd already been logged in for a while; never had this happen before, looked around online, saw some others have had this issue in the past and somebody suggested verifying the Microsoft account to fix it. I verified my account (wasn't aware it hadn't been verified) to try to avoid being randomly asked for my PIN in the future. All went normally. Well, today when turning on the computer (it made the notification sound before I'd even logged in), it told me there was an issue with my Microsoft account ("You probably changed your password"--no, I didn't) and I needed to fix it. I went into the settings and clicked the button and it asked for my PIN...provided it, and all was supposedly well. I'm still not sure what the issue was, but apparently, verifying my account didn't fix whatever the thing is that randomly asks you for your PIN.


I've been browsing around my Microsoft account settings for a while now and noticed in the activity section my sign-in attempts; there were my last two successful ones...and three I don't recognize, not my IP address, not my location. They were unsuccessful so Windows said not to worry but it sure was nice of them not to tell me about any of these when they occurred! (They're from back in February.) I can't think of who would be trying to sign in to my account, or why; nobody has access to this computer but me. Maybe they're false positives or something? Anyway, at some point when I was fiddling with my security settings, Windows e-mailed me a code to put in to log in (I had to do this when verifying my account). I did this, but checked the box saying to not ask for this again on this device...and now I can't find anywhere to revert this particular setting. Help keeps saying to go to your basic security settings and click "Update info" but there's no link on the page titled that. Just "Sign-in activity," "Password security," "Advanced security options," and "Stay secure with Windows 10." So...not sure what's next.


In "Advanced security options" (when I go to the page it's instead titled "Additional security options"), there are the various ways to prove who I am. There's my password, "Email a code" (the option I believe I'm asking about), "Sign in with Samsung," and add a new way to sign in or verify. Okay. They all say they're up to date. "Receive alerts" for "Email a code" is turned on. (I never got any alerts about those unsuccessful attempts but whatever.) The only options for "Email a code" are "View activity" (the page with the weird sign-in attempts) and "Remove."


So...it looks like the e-mail a code thing is still turned on, even though I selected that option to stop asking me on this device. Am I right? If not, where do I go to turn it back on, so it does ask me for a code in the right circumstances? (Like just now when I logged in to my security settings.)


Info on the weird "We need to confirm it's really you, please randomly give us your PIN" prompts would be welcome, too. I thought verifying my account would prevent this but it seems to have complicated it.

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