You can use a password character in an edit control to conceal user input. When a password character is set, it is displayed in place of each character the user types. When a password character is removed, the control displays the characters the user types. If you create an edit control using the style ES_PASSWORD, the default password character is an asterisk (*). An application can use the EM_SETPASSWORDCHAR message to remove or define a different password character and the EM_GETPASSWORDCHAR message to retrieve the current password character. These messages apply to single-line edit controls only.