The error The referenced account is currently locked and may not be logged on to is a common message appearing on the Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating system when a user account is locked and unable to log in to the system.
The main reasons may include:
- User Account Lock: System administrators may have taken the action to lock the user account for protection or other security reasons.
- Incorrect Password Entries: If a user has entered the wrong password too many times, the account may be locked to prevent password-guessing attacks.
- Security Policies: There could be security policies on the system that enforce rules regarding locking an account after a certain number of failures.
- Automatic Locking After a Period of Inactivity: Some systems may be configured to automatically lock an account after a period of inactivity.
In the previous article, if you still can’t access your computer after 30 minutes, there is another solution you can try to address the situation. That is to activate the Administrator account and disable the account lockout policy.