MS accounts jumble, need help

[tinpanalley]

Please help me help my father... 😱 (That's my face when I think about trying to fix this problem. I'm a bit lost.) This one's gotta go down as one of the worst examples of people overcomplicating things from not understanding how accounts work, which I DO understand can often be very confusing. There is no way to tell this story faster so if you choose to read further, I appreciate it and hope you can understand. It's the kind of computer problem that tech people like me love but I'm just too overwhelmed by it now.

My dad has spent the last few years opening a MS (live, outlook) account every time he started using a new MS service. That's just the way he thought you did it. I only just found this out. So there is:
- a Windows Live Messenger @live account fro myears ago
- a Skype @live account
- a Windows Phone @outlook account
- a Windows tablet @live account
- his Windows laptop @live account.
...and this is just MS. He thought they were sign-ins per SERVICE/DEVICE. This doesn't yet touch Google where there are as many. He also used to have a Skype account for each physical place he used Skype (attic, living room, office, etc). ...I know, I know... So can you imagine the poor dude's brain when I ask him, "Dad... what's the account password on your Windows Phone so we can fix some stuff?" He has to think which of those 5 is it in addition to the 100 or so other account passwords he has with banks, etc. To be fair, until Windows10, having one synced MS account never really had any added benefit. I didn't use MS accounts at all on my computers and laptops. It's not like contacts or photos would sync back then anyway.

Ok... to the question at hand. He's finally agreed to learn how all this account syncing business works. So I want to organise these accounts, see which one has his phone contacts, etc etc. He doesn't have the right passwords on his passwords list. Years of forgetting, resetting it, and not updating his passwords lists has left him with accounts that there are no known passwords for that work. Recovering them from Microsoft requires a verification code followed by questions about your account details to double check for security. Never having put any personal information INTO these accounts, there is nothing to verify with and MS won't let me into any of them at all. If he were to sign out of his Windows Phone by accident right now, there would be no way to get back in. He just got a new phone and in preparation for the nightmare that will be opening his account on the new Windows Phone, I need your help.

1. Can you merge several MS accounts somehow?
2. Can you delete MS accounts from existence so they are banished from the universe forever? (this would be wonderful in his case)
3. Is there no other way to do verification? MS won't reply to me.

I'll deal with Google after this. For now I need to clean up where the bulk of his time is spent: Windows phone, laptop, and desktop.

THANK you so much if you made it this far. 🙂

 

[Elixer]

Nope, you can't merge accounts.

Yes, you can delete MS accounts, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/closing-microsoft-account

You can do verification multiple ways, text message, phone, MS's authenticator, and so on.

Unsure, why this is posted in the OS area, these don't have to do with the OS per se, they are just accounts.

 

[tinpanalley]

Unsure, why this is posted in the OS area, these don't have to do with the OS per se, they are just accounts.

I have no idea where else to put it.
Do you happen to have a number or link to where I can find a number to call MS? Can't get one on ANY of their websites.

 

[Dahak]

1) unfortunately not, you can link some accounts for example any skype accounts so that you only have to use the primary Microsoft account

This has been something that alot of people want but they never did. unless its buried somewhere I have never been able to find it


2) to close and account look at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/closing-microsoft-account

3) Not sure


To be honest, it might be a bit easier to create a brand new fresh account and then add the items and devices from that. True some people may not be able to get ahold of him but might be easier than having to deal with all of the other accounts.

Some items/devices you might have to manually backup copy first before switching the account

 

[tinpanalley]

Some items/devices you might have to manually backup copy first before switching the account

The problem with that is that he's got his accounts in a situation that I can't get into any of them. None of the passwords he claims exist, actually work.

 

[Ketchup]

I guess I don't understand why he really NEEDS all of these old accounts. If he can't access them to begin with, he won't need them going forward. Just make a new account (or two) for everything.

 

[VirtualLarry]

As much as I'm not a fan of biometrics, they would probably have solved this issue. Well, until your father got a scar on the finger used for the biometric fingerprint scanner.

 

[tinpanalley]

To be honest, it might be a bit easier to create a brand new fresh account and then add the items and devices from that. True some people may not be able to get ahold of him but might be easier than having to deal with all of the other accounts.

It wasn't just that with his phone, it was all the apps, settings, etc.

I guess I don't understand why he really NEEDS all of these old accounts. If he can't access them to begin with, he won't need them going forward. Just make a new account (or two) for everything.

It's a snake that eats its own tail... In addition to being lazy about keeping his tech world organised he's also a digital hoarder that is so terribly disorganised that he's frightened he'll delete something he won't be able to find even though he's never looked for that thing that he might be losing.So he figures, like everyone does, well it's digital it's not like it's taking up space. I'll get to it one day...except, no, you never will. Anyway we found out they're all dead after 6 months of inactivity anyway. There's more to how we fixed it which I'll put here in case anyone's interested because I do think it's useful info...

First of all, any plan to consolidate several accounts into a hub, importing accounts, etc requires you to be able to actually LOG IN to all those accounts so that's out of the question anyway. Plus, more than 6 months of inactivity has already killed all those accounts. I do like this idea though, of linking send and receive accounts. For years, we've been trying to get him to chuck his AOL account in exchange for something else. With his Windows Phone/laptop/desktop world he is so used to for work and personal, Outlook makes the most sense. But if there were a way to receive his AOL mail via his Outlook account and then reply to AOL mails from Outlook but have it go out with the AOL address... but that's another story.

In the end I spoke to a MS customer service rep who said, "if you're sending yourself verifications in the form of emails, you're always going to get that form with questions. But if you choose to have a text sent to you instead, that phone verification overrides any need to have you recover via the form. Tell your father a text is coming and have him message you the code that we send, that will get you into his account and then you can change the password all you want the way you would any other time."

The password was, by the way, what my father expected it to be. We wouldn't have been asked for verification apparently if the password had been wrong. Those other accounts he used years ago are all dead as of 6 months from their last use and with no activity. So nothing to worry about there. But I did take the opportunity to ask, why don't you guys have a simple system in place of using the same kinds of verification questions most other security checks ask (first pet, street you grew up on, etc etc) and he said they think asking your personal info is better. To which I said, well maybe you can pass along the info that I know several computer/tech novices of all ages that will create a login for a device, or a computer account and never do anything more than invent their username and password and that's it. Many of them don't even KNOW you can enter personal info into their "account" because they don't see their username as an account they see it as a bank card pin. It's just what you need to "get in". When that person loses their password you have no way to help them if they haven't added more personal info. They ask you to tell them the people you've emailed and what the subjects were. I'm rather tech savvy if I'm being honest and I had Android phones for 4 years and never ONCE even clicked the create a new email button in my gmail because I simply don't use gmail.

To my dad and many people like him, Google is "the internet", outlook is "the email on my computer", "Windows" is a computer made Dell, HP, etc, and they have no clue how to get their heads around the fact that Outlook is also an account that logs you into the MS ecosystem online and creates syncing opportunities with your portable Microsoft OS devices, or that the internet actually comes from a service provider and Google is only ONE site for searching information. And aside from the fact that my father in particular should be more organised, MS should make recovering a password easy for people who don't know anything about their ecosystem and only have an outlook account because the Windows phone or Windows laptop they bought asked them to create one when they first opened it.
...just my two cents.

Thanks for everyone's help.