password reset: please commiserate with me
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(please note, this is marked as RANT!!) Been trying to help wife reset password for her ms account. It's ridiculous! She is signed in on her laptop. She is signed in to her outlook account, but we can't change the password, because we don't know the old one. So, we ask MS to send her a code to her back up email account -- which I cannot find listed in her account anywhere (and that's just another part of this horrendous story). MS Expires Code Before You Can Get It We can log into that backup email account and receive the code, but by the time the code gets there MS has expired the code and says we have to send a new one. Also, I actually tested the backup email account by sending other email to and from it and it is not that the back up email account is getting stuff slow, it is actually that MS is sending the code slowly. But, It Gets Worse Well, they finally sent 5 codes all at once and we got them and luckily the last one worked. We got into her account. So I went to reset her password, but you need to know the old one. Ok, they have a "forgot password" option there too and they said they would send a code. So I went through the form and said send the code, but then MS said, "Oh, you've received too many codes today so try again tomorrow." To which I say WTF?!!!!:mad: Here's The Topper Now I will make fun of even more of this terrible terrible process. Check out this form (snapshot)[^] and really read what it says. It has many errors and problematic things. Note: I had to alter the real characters and email address so I wouldn't give anything away, but the rest of the form is exactly as MS provides it. And that black vertical line is representing the flashing cursor that you see where you are supposed to type on the line. All The Errors and Confusions of That Form The form says (my emphasis), "To verify that this is your email address, complete the hidden part and click "Send code" to receive your code." Let's say the email address is :
rkHIDDENLETTERS@fake.comWhat do you think you need to type on that line? They say, "complete the hidden part" which to me means, type the "hidden part". I think you're supposed to type:HIDDENLETTERSBut that is not correct!!!:confused: You have to typerkHIDDENLETTERS@fake.comGood luck waiting! Had that kind of issue with a client/neighbor of mine. Couldn't log into OneDrive as she didn't know the password to her Microsoft Live account. Didn't even know she had one, as her daughter set up the laptop a couple of years ago, didn't take note of it and doesn't remember. Went through all those trials and tribulations for two days, including trying to prove that she was really the person she said to be. After two weeks she gets an email from Microsoft that they can verify her identity and thus can't reset the password... That's why I always set up new computers with a local password, or use a dummy email account account and immediately uninstall OneDrive once I get to the desktop (and set up a local user next, and/or enable the local administrator account and take good note of that password).
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Good luck waiting! Had that kind of issue with a client/neighbor of mine. Couldn't log into OneDrive as she didn't know the password to her Microsoft Live account. Didn't even know she had one, as her daughter set up the laptop a couple of years ago, didn't take note of it and doesn't remember. Went through all those trials and tribulations for two days, including trying to prove that she was really the person she said to be. After two weeks she gets an email from Microsoft that they can verify her identity and thus can't reset the password... That's why I always set up new computers with a local password, or use a dummy email account account and immediately uninstall OneDrive once I get to the desktop (and set up a local user next, and/or enable the local administrator account and take good note of that password).
Ralf Quint wrote:
After two weeks she gets an email from Microsoft that they can verify her identity and thus can't reset the password...
I was worried about that so I just kept waiting until I could finally get a reset code successfully sent to me. I finally did get a reset code and was able to set the password again. It's a crazy process!
Ralf Quint wrote:
That's why I always set up new computers with a local password,
That's a solid idea. :thumbsup:
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Ahah - You have obviously never been in the position of trying to retrieve a lost Apple password, because what you went through does not get near - and it was a PITA already. Apple made that so silly that you need another Apple device :omg: to be able to. So it is if you want to locate an Apple device you lost ( try and loose your iPhone while skiing ). So please loose your thing during Apple store opening hours, otherwise you will have to wait to get your account back. X|
