Fix: Reset forgotten Windows Phone pin remotely if locked out of it

I got an older Lumia 930 phone (nice big display and 20MP camera, Windows Mobile 8.1 upgradeable to Windows 10, main shortcoming is that it doesn’t have microSD slot) on big discount the other day, but after upgrading it to Windows 10 I accidentally entered the wrong PIN code at login an it managed to lock permanently.

I was having the deadlocking situation where after it locked asking me to reboot, at each reboot (even tried resetting with power+vol down for 10sec), it was saying the same thing again and again.

Luckily I had already activated a Microsoft account (was required at Win8.1 in order to download the Windows upgrade advisor app from the store), so following the guidance at https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mobiledevices/forum/mdlumia-mdsettings/how-to-reset-phone-if-i-forgot-my-lockscreen/ff4d7ba3-d301-4392-b05a-46bac68dcc69 and some other forum discussions, I went to http://account.microsoft.com, then at the Devices section, selected to see more info on that specific phone and then from Find My Phone I choose to lock it with a new 6-digit pin.

There, it asks you to also enter a message that is supposed to display to the user of the phone, but haven’t seen it appear. However it does make it to change it successfully.

For changing the pin remotely the phone obviously needs to have wifi or data access active (if it doesn’t and doesn’t allow you to set it without entering a code, try plugging it via USB to a Windows 10 computer first or if you’ve set it up to connect automatically to open hotspots find one such). Else will need to have a SIM and number and be connected (correct SIM pin entered) to mobile (GSM etc.) network. The lock phone pane at account.microsoft.com does ask you if the phone has a number assigned to it or not, to send some special locking SMS I guess.