Solved Different Sign-in screens on two devices

My DELL laptop runs Windows 11 Home and my HP desktop runs Windows 11 Pro but I am fairly sure that both sign-in screens were the same until about 3 weeks ago. About that time I noticed that the DELL sign-in screen began showing a down pointing arrow comprising 10 dots. See photo. There is no arrow on the HP sign-in screen.

It's not a problem. Just an observation that has me wondering where it came from.
Is anyone else seeing this difference?

The Windows Home version shows the dots (not arrow) indicating you can click there and enable an on-screen keyboard. This way you can click on the numbers instead of typing them and avoid a key logger malware. Probably the Home version is updated to a newer Windows 11 build than the Pro version.

Thanks.
Both devices are on the same 24H2 build.
I tried clicking on the dots with the mouse cursor but nothing happened.
I thought it might be related to the On-screen keyboard so I checked both devices and both of them have the On-screen keyboard option set to 'Off'.
On the Dell I turned this setting to 'On' and restarted the device. The dots did not appear but, after signing-in I saw that the setting had reverted to 'Off' on its own. Maybe 'Off' is the default and one switches it 'On' as needed?
After the next restart the dots were back.

Either way clicking on the dots does nothing so I think they are intended to work with touch-screens and my Dell does not have a touch screen. With touch-screens becoming more common I reckon the HP device will show the dots soon.

spapakons said:

Probably the Home version is updated to a newer Windows 11 build than the Pro version.

Click to expand...

I think you are right.
I had Specified the Target Feature Update to 24H2 on both devices but, about 3 weeks ago I: -

a) Undid the Specified the Target Feature Update setting on the Dell device.
b) I also switched 'Get the latest updates as soon as they are available' to 'On' on the Dell.

This was to allow the Dell to update to 25H2 at some point via Windows Update but this update did not happen until I ran the enablement package KB5054156 msu installer yesterday. The Dell is now on 25H2 but the dots appeared about 3 weeks before when I did a) and b) above.

To test this out I have now done a) and b) with the HP device and as soon as I did this the dots now appear on my HP device. They are inactive though because neither devices have touch screens.

At least I know now so I'll call it solved.

Yes, usually when you see interface differences, it is because of different version of Windows, such as 10 vs 11 or old version 11 vs current version 11.

the pinpad image addition is pretty recent. not to stir up a solved thread, just to point out its been within the past few CUs that it showed up for me (and i believe @antspants too)

dacrone said:

the pinpad image addition is pretty recent. not to stir up a solved thread, just to point out its been within the past few CUs that it showed up for me (and i believe @antspants too)

Click to expand...

Yes. And I just did a totally clean install of 25H2 but when I set Netplwiz to auto login, it started appearing during the login phase. Ugly as.

I’ve noticed this too. That little down arrow with the 10 dots is part of a recent Windows 11 update they’ve started showing it on the Home edition sign-in screen as a subtle visual cue for the user account list or quick profile switch. It doesn’t appear on Pro or Enterprise editions in the same way, which is why your HP doesn’t show it. Nothing to worry about, it’s just a minor UI tweak, not a bug or anything affecting functionality.