Using own domain with a personal Microsoft account?

Energize · Sunday at 16:18

So I have recently got a windows 11 laptop and created a microsoft account on it. I currently have an Office365 business basic account for the 1tb storage mainly but also use a personal domain with the included exchange email account. Annoyingly I can't sign into windows with this account so have to sort've have it as an add on.

Seeing that the subscription price between office 365 personal which includes all the office apps plus email account and 1tb storage is not much more than a business basic account now it seems to make sense to switch over to this, is there any way to change my business basic sub to a personal 365 account or cancel that sub and use the domain with the personal email account included in the sub, preferably using that email address to sign in?

Journey · Sunday at 16:30

Energize said:
I currently have an Office365 business basic account for the 1tb storage mainly but also use a personal domain with the included exchange email account. Annoyingly I can't sign into windows with this account so have to sort've have it as an add on

You can't sign in as it isn't set up as a tenant in MS AAD, so you can only sign into the apps using it.

As for the last bit, convert to EOP1 then just add that to your Outlook etc. but you can't sign in using that account for MS personal unless you set it up as a personal Microsoft account using that mail address.

Energize · Sunday at 17:56

Sorry I'm not familiar with EOP1, is this in Office365 admin or MS Entra? Seems like my best way of consolidating everything is to cancel the business sub and create a new MS account with my own email domain then? Will I still have the same level of control over my email services? Like at the moment I can name changes in exchange to automatically quarantine new devices that sign into my account before I approve them and can setup aliases etc.

andshrew · Sunday at 20:10

I'm not clear if you're aware, but the email services that are included with Microsoft 365 Personal is just storage for an Outlook.com account. As far as I know, you cannot use your own domain with Outlook.com anymore so you would have to use a @outlook.com address to benefit from it; so this isn't a direct replacement for what you already have.

Are you using Windows 11 Home edition? I actually thought you could use an Office 365 Business Basic account to sign into Windows, but it's possible that you actually need Windows 11 Pro for that (given it's a feature intended for business).

You could drop your Business Basic subscription down to Exchange Online; this would let you keep your custom domain email with Microsoft exactly as it is now but you would forgo everything else on the account (ie. no OneDrive access). You'd do this via buying licenses in the Microsoft 365 Admin portal. It also lets you compare licenses so you could see exactly what you would be losing; but also it's not really a great deal look at pricing, if you're going then buy a personal plan in addition to it. Business Basic for me is £4.60 per month, Exchange Online Plan 1 is still £3.10 per month by itself. Also keep in mind if you did this you may not even be able to sign into your business account on the personal plans Outlook license.