Windows Account Problems

deshepherd · 23 Aug 2015 at 17:30

Just about to move to a new laptop and having to move to Win8.1 (and possibly Win10 sometime soon). As I believe I'll need to use a windows account to login to this I decided to make sure I had that setup before starting new laptop. However, seems that there already is a Microsoft account using my email address (I may have set this up in the past) but what I'd expect to be my password didn't work so tried the "can't remember my password link" ... it says its sending email with reset code to me but email never arrives. I've even tried redirecting my emails (I have my own domain with emal forarding rules at the hosting site) in case it was being affected by the current VirginMedia email flakiness with no difference.

Anyone had similar problems ... and did you manage to fix it?

Also, looked into contacting MS support but seem to be in a Catch-22 situation as you have to login to your microsoft account before you can ask them about problems logging into your microsoft account.

MichaelAwkward · 23 Aug 2015 at 18:03

You don't need a Microsoft account for any version of Windows.

You can skip it when it asks you. Not sure what to recommend about your account otherwise.

deshepherd · 23 Aug 2015 at 20:33

MichaelAwkward said:
You don't need a Microsoft account for any version of Windows.

You can skip it when it asks you. Not sure what to recommend about your account otherwise.

Thanks ... I'd thought it was needed though having googled I've found that you can setup windows 8 without a Microsoft account so I'll probably go for that initially and try to short out the account later. I could probably make a new account with a different email address but it would be a bit irritating not to be using my primary email address.

ED209 · 23 Aug 2015 at 20:37

you should get a option to create a local account, this is what I did with W10 and 8.1 as I don't have a Hotmail account

deshepherd · 23 Aug 2015 at 22:42

OK, so setup laptop using a "local" account only then to discover that the laptop described by another etailer (rainforest) as 1920x1080 full HD was actually only 1366x766 so stroppy support message now sent pointing out of I wanted almost-HD then I already had a perfectly adequate laptop for that.