How to unblock the smart card PIN ?

How to unblock the PIN of a smart card on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 2008, Windows 2012, Windows 2016, Windows 2019, Windows 2022

Enable the integrated unblock screen

By default, the integrated unblock screen is not available. To activate it, you have to enable the policy “Allow Integrated Unblock screen to be displayed at the time of logon“.

The following smart card Group Policy settings are located in Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Smart Card.”

You can get more detail on this policy on technet.

integrated_unblock_policy

Go to the integrated unblock screen

Press control-alt-delete on an active session. Press “Change a password”.

control_alt_del

Press “Other Credentials”.

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Select the smart card reader.

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If the following screen is not shown, the integrated unblock screen is not active. Check the box “Unblock smart card”.

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Retrieve the challenge. In the example, it is 1603 EBDF 1C8A 2E72.

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Compute the response

Download the Response Calculator from Gemalto. (the tool is compatible with all minidrivers).

Enter the challenge given by the integrated unblock screen and enter the admin PIN.

response_calculator_gemalto

Enter the response and the new PIN

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How to unblock the PIN of a smart card on Windows XP or Windows 2003

By default, Windows XP do not support smart card having a minidriver instead of a CSP. To support minidriver, the component Base CSP MUST be installed. If the base CSP has not been installed, there is a lot of chance that your smart card do not have a minidriver and as a consequence, be not compatible with this procedure.

Clic on start -> run then enter “pintool”.

Pintool

Switch to the Unblock tab and follow the same instructions to compute the response than for Windows Vista and later.