Windows 8 and MS Accounts
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10 months ago O2 ceased their o2.ie mail service...
Ger
Exactly why I anticipate this being an issue. It's one thing when your Windows Live account goes down though, another altogether when its tied to your Win 8 login.
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Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom ;-) have decided to encourage users to associate their Windows 8 login to a Microsoft Account. There is one massive downside here. My mother, while installing her new Win8 laptop, created a new Windows Live account (now renamed, yet again, to Microsoft Accounts) associated with her existing ISP email account. Now we'd like to change that to be a new "Outlook.com" email account, so she's not permanently tied to an ISP. Windows Live does not seem to allow changing the associated email address, or at least not as far as I can tell. Consequently, we can find no way of changing this. I foresee some problems... 1. An ISP could go bust, effectively breaking the system. 2. She may want to change ISP in future, but her MS account is tied to the ISP account. 3. Any Metro app purchases are tied to her MS account, so reinstalling with a new account means she's lost any investment in apps, along with settings etc. I've spent half a day struggling with this and come up a blank. Anyone got any suggestions? Failing that, how on earth am I supposed to get support from MS nowadays for this kind of issue? I cannot seem to find any support info through their web sites anymore. PS. I've tried the "Rename account" or "Change email account" options under Microsoft Account. These simply go to a page saying "The email address associated with your Microsoft account cannot be changed" message. Very helpful.
I wanted to change the country on my profile (it was the only field I'd filled in), and it was the one field that was fixed... But I clicked on a help / contact button on their website, and had a live chat with a MS chap within a minute, and he seemed pretty switched on and helpful. Maybe you can't change this directly, but the behind the scenes folk can? I too have my misgivings about this linkage, but it's easily fixed by having your own domain. You can let your Mum have her own email address there if you like? mem@robgrainger.co.uk? Iain. Iain.
I am one of "those foreigners coming over here and stealing our jobs". Yay me!
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I wanted to change the country on my profile (it was the only field I'd filled in), and it was the one field that was fixed... But I clicked on a help / contact button on their website, and had a live chat with a MS chap within a minute, and he seemed pretty switched on and helpful. Maybe you can't change this directly, but the behind the scenes folk can? I too have my misgivings about this linkage, but it's easily fixed by having your own domain. You can let your Mum have her own email address there if you like? mem@robgrainger.co.uk? Iain. Iain.
I am one of "those foreigners coming over here and stealing our jobs". Yay me!
Having my own domain won't help as there's no way to tie it to the Microsoft account once it has been created.
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Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom ;-) have decided to encourage users to associate their Windows 8 login to a Microsoft Account. There is one massive downside here. My mother, while installing her new Win8 laptop, created a new Windows Live account (now renamed, yet again, to Microsoft Accounts) associated with her existing ISP email account. Now we'd like to change that to be a new "Outlook.com" email account, so she's not permanently tied to an ISP. Windows Live does not seem to allow changing the associated email address, or at least not as far as I can tell. Consequently, we can find no way of changing this. I foresee some problems... 1. An ISP could go bust, effectively breaking the system. 2. She may want to change ISP in future, but her MS account is tied to the ISP account. 3. Any Metro app purchases are tied to her MS account, so reinstalling with a new account means she's lost any investment in apps, along with settings etc. I've spent half a day struggling with this and come up a blank. Anyone got any suggestions? Failing that, how on earth am I supposed to get support from MS nowadays for this kind of issue? I cannot seem to find any support info through their web sites anymore. PS. I've tried the "Rename account" or "Change email account" options under Microsoft Account. These simply go to a page saying "The email address associated with your Microsoft account cannot be changed" message. Very helpful.
It may be a new Microsoft idea or a temporary condition or a Microsoft reaction to the "mediacenter key" Windows 8 installation hack and the like. Right now there is the "rename account" link just below the email that reports "the email account cannot be changed". It is too illogical to be permanent. Anyway, the right thing to do is to use a Microsoft Mail (Hotmail?) for the Microsoft Account. It will not go away prior to Microsoft and Windows 8. It is always possible to do that, but all bonuses like additional Sky Drive space will be lost. In the beta Windows times I have configured several Windows 8 machines. Now I have exactly one real Windows 8 machine and my language settings still occasionally change on their own. The worst inconvenience is that programs either see or not the Ctrl+Shift+0 shortcut.
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It may be a new Microsoft idea or a temporary condition or a Microsoft reaction to the "mediacenter key" Windows 8 installation hack and the like. Right now there is the "rename account" link just below the email that reports "the email account cannot be changed". It is too illogical to be permanent. Anyway, the right thing to do is to use a Microsoft Mail (Hotmail?) for the Microsoft Account. It will not go away prior to Microsoft and Windows 8. It is always possible to do that, but all bonuses like additional Sky Drive space will be lost. In the beta Windows times I have configured several Windows 8 machines. Now I have exactly one real Windows 8 machine and my language settings still occasionally change on their own. The worst inconvenience is that programs either see or not the Ctrl+Shift+0 shortcut.
That's fine, but I don't want to have to reinstall her laptop just to change the associated account. That seems to be the only option at present.
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That's fine, but I don't want to have to reinstall her laptop just to change the associated account. That seems to be the only option at present.
in user accounts you can add another account, the option looks to allow you to add a microsoft account although I haven't tried it through to completion and the option may only be there because the PC i saw this on was configured with a Local account. I did try a microsoft account but I didn't want to run my local applications as an email address as they log things to a server using the windows user name. So I then added a local account and deleted my microsoft account This doesn't help if your mother has been using the appstore etc but it may help if the account is still new enough to be mostly unused
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It may be a new Microsoft idea or a temporary condition or a Microsoft reaction to the "mediacenter key" Windows 8 installation hack and the like. Right now there is the "rename account" link just below the email that reports "the email account cannot be changed". It is too illogical to be permanent. Anyway, the right thing to do is to use a Microsoft Mail (Hotmail?) for the Microsoft Account. It will not go away prior to Microsoft and Windows 8. It is always possible to do that, but all bonuses like additional Sky Drive space will be lost. In the beta Windows times I have configured several Windows 8 machines. Now I have exactly one real Windows 8 machine and my language settings still occasionally change on their own. The worst inconvenience is that programs either see or not the Ctrl+Shift+0 shortcut.
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Thanks, can I encourage users/readers to flag this as "I have this issue", and ideally leave a comment objecting to the Win8 repercussions of this awful decision, so that MS may feel the need to act fast to resolve this horrible mess.
I know from experience that this has been broken for at least 10 months, probably longer. I ended up just making a new account. I think its safe to say they consider this to be a non-problem and don't have any intention of ever fixing it.
Rob Grainger wrote:
can I encourage users/readers to flag this as "I have this issue"
Anyone have a link? I'd be happy to waste a little time registering as also having the "problem" if someone thinks it'll help.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom ;-) have decided to encourage users to associate their Windows 8 login to a Microsoft Account. There is one massive downside here. My mother, while installing her new Win8 laptop, created a new Windows Live account (now renamed, yet again, to Microsoft Accounts) associated with her existing ISP email account. Now we'd like to change that to be a new "Outlook.com" email account, so she's not permanently tied to an ISP. Windows Live does not seem to allow changing the associated email address, or at least not as far as I can tell. Consequently, we can find no way of changing this. I foresee some problems... 1. An ISP could go bust, effectively breaking the system. 2. She may want to change ISP in future, but her MS account is tied to the ISP account. 3. Any Metro app purchases are tied to her MS account, so reinstalling with a new account means she's lost any investment in apps, along with settings etc. I've spent half a day struggling with this and come up a blank. Anyone got any suggestions? Failing that, how on earth am I supposed to get support from MS nowadays for this kind of issue? I cannot seem to find any support info through their web sites anymore. PS. I've tried the "Rename account" or "Change email account" options under Microsoft Account. These simply go to a page saying "The email address associated with your Microsoft account cannot be changed" message. Very helpful.
Perhaps you could make a new MS Account, then use Windows Easy Transfer to migrate her data and settings over to it? Disclaimer: I have not tried this.
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Which puts you in a boat up a certain creek with a lot of other people without paddles. I really hope MS figures this out because i see this being a common problem.
Don't comment your code - it was hard to write, it should be hard to read!
Yup. Somehow the Windows Phone Marketplace and the Windows 8 Store seem to use the same underlying customer database as xbox live!!!. I first came across the issue 4 years ago when I got my xbox but then when I got a WinPhone 7 I needed to buy apps so I went though "the process". Typically of MS, since they had already had a way to change the xbox live account, using an xbox, they figured that their job was already done. - Obviously a web-version of the form isn't necessary right? BTW Their official advice for those people without an xbox - Ask a friend if you can borrow theirs.