Forum Discussion
Account name, email address relationship and changing these
Hello, I am trying to help an elderly friend who has been left behind by technology and seemingly endless changes to Microsoft and other products. I am not exactly young (72) and between the 2 of us we cannot understand what we need to do. He has problems because the email provider used for his accounts (ntlworld.com) does not work any more AND he has forgotten / lost his MS account passwords which makes changing / correcting stuff challenging as we have found out. Not a good place to start but that is what we have.
Firstly, can someone explain the "structure" of a Microsoft (MS) account in terms of these bits of data:
- Account name / title / whatever (e.g. John Smith)
- Account email address (e.g. email address removed for privacy reasons)
- Secondary (back up) email address (e.g. email address removed for privacy reasons)
Does the account name need to be the primary email or is the account user e.g. is John Smith simply "data" about the account whose main ID is mailto:email address removed for privacy reasons
What is linked to what and in what way? I ask this because I log in to my MS account using an email address and password and I don't understand if this is what everyone does or is it one of several account IDs.
We also had fun trying to add secondary email addresses and getting them verified - trying to verify them, he received an email from MS (to the newly added 2nd email address) telling him to click the link in the email. When he did this a pop up appeared telling him that he was logged into the wrong account. It is a fairly meaningless message (sadly like many MS messages to users).
So, a good start would be to get an understanding from someone (in plain English and not tech speak) so I (and he) can clearly understand what we have got and then work out a way to get to our eventual target. It should keep us amused over the winter!!
Thank you in advance, F
1 Reply
A Microsoft account is basically your digital ID for Microsoft services like Outlook, OneDrive, and Windows. You sign in with an email address (this is your account “username”) and a password. The account name (like “John Smith”) is just personal information linked to that account, it’s not used to sign in. The primary email address is what you use to log in, and you can also add secondary or backup email addresses (or even a phone number) to help recover your account if you forget the password. When adding a backup email, Microsoft sends a confirmation link to make sure it’s really yours, if you’re logged into a different Microsoft account when clicking that link, you might see a “wrong account” message, so it’s best to sign out first or use a private browser window. In short, every Microsoft account has one main sign-in email and password, and everything else (like name or backups) is there to help you manage or recover the account safely.
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