Apr 06 2021 01:09 PM - edited Apr 06 2021 01:10 PM
Hello everyone
I think it's time for me to vent my frustration about working with multiple work/education accounts on a windows 10 device...
First of all, I have 3 Microsoft Accounts (1x Personal; 1x Work; 1x Education) and oh boy, it's very very frustrating to get all these 3 Accounts work together on the same windows 10 device with one Userprofile.
Working with my Personal and Work (or Education) account on the same device works fine, no problems, but as soon as I add additionally either my Work or Education Account in the Windows 10 settings under "Account > Email & accounts" things starting to get complicated.
I just want to use all my accounts on the same device with the same Userprofile, I really love the Microsoft 365 Platform but these things driving me crazy.
I had a time, in there I worked completely online, but yeah, we all know how cool it is to work with the online versions of Office Apps. I also tried multi-bootable windows installations or multiple Userprofiles and it worked, but I often need to access files/services that are stored in the OneDrive from my Education Account or vise versa, so it's really impracticable.
Then I tried to link my accounts just in these apps where I need it, but Windows 10 really have fun on it to write in my accounts under the named windows 10 settings location.
Has anyone a best practice, tips/tricks etc. everything helps... Thanks.
Apr 06 2021 01:15 PM
Apr 06 2021 01:35 PM
Jul 11 2021 09:56 PM
Same issue@preuley30
Any fix available ?
Sep 19 2022 03:45 PM
Sep 19 2022 03:52 PM
Sep 20 2022 02:55 AM
Oct 01 2022 10:35 AM
Oct 01 2022 09:59 PM
Hey @OddGentleman I have not used virtual machines before but understand the concept - It just seems like an extreme way for contractors across the globe to have to work! There must be a simple way to switch between accounts using installed apps (Office 365, TEAMs and even MS Project...)
I tried installing a browser TEAMs site as an App (https://youtu.be/XiKPKrWGgf4) from Kevin Stratvert, 2 years ago... and it seemed to work for a while, but now my windows account seems to take over and only allow the app to open the version of 365 / Team tenant I own???
Oct 01 2022 11:13 PM
The proper way would be for all contractors to have access to your domain, resources and communication, via dedicated accounts or as guests.
Our contractors can access virtual machines simply through the browser - via Citrix. We keep communication in Teams.
I believe you can also use different browser for each Microsoft (work) account. That's if you are able to work 100% in the web apps.
Oct 02 2022 05:24 AM
Jan 11 2023 11:59 AM
Jan 27 2023 10:13 PM
I used to see these threads and laugh and say, why don't you guys all switch to Google suites. I used to run 8 google accounts in parallel. It was easy (insane, right?!)...
but then last year my work decides to switch from Gsuite to O365.
Followed by my education - which is a double whammy problem as I'm doing a PhD and working at the same place, so those are 3 accounts went from Gsuite to O365. 2x work, 1x education.
The first discovery: I cannot do work on my phone. In the world of Edge mobile, there can only be one: either work or education. Thank you Microsoft for rubbing this ideal world up our faces, where everyone has one career and function in life.
I have a personal Microsoft which is exclusively used for the family xbox. I didn't want to drag family into this... but, oh well.
Unlike some of you here, I'm a tech savvy, like one of those geeks who are the first to die in the office when the bad guy attacks? Yearh, that's me. I self taught music and BASIC, and coded my first digital jukebox when I was 5 years old. I've used MS products since the early 90s. So hear me out.
Historically, Microsoft offers incredible breadth and depth of features in its products, at the expense of simplicity. If you want minimalism... who am I kidding, you wouldn't even be reading this. We love Microsoft because we love the awesomeness of MS Word and Powerpoint (and hate Google Docs and Slides), right?!
The main reason of this issue is the conflict between the identity authentication between the Microsoft apps on the devices and the Microsoft identity you have signed in on the cloud. So, the easiest way to mitigate all of these issues was to go cloudful. (Hey internet, is this the first time someone uses the term cloudful in this context?)
Anyway. Simple direct solution: Multiple Edge profiles in the same PC account. Each profile syncs to a different MS account. No offline Office apps at all. In fact, Uninstall them all. Remove all onedrives even. All microsoft accounts. Go local Userprofile if you want to keep this to an extreme. I personally purchased the M365 family subscription and kept my personal profile as the main and only MS Account on the device apps. The "your account needs fixing" and all the consequential missing emails and headache was much more costly to me (true story).
You could create folders inside your own personal onedrive, and make one folder for each MS account, and give edit access of each folder to the that account. That's guaranteed to work this way, but not the other way around. So if you want to access a file that's shared with your work account? you can only do so in the edge browser of that profile.
You could add the multiple Onedrives only, with a slight risk of sync issues. For me it is minimal, less than once a month a glitch happens in Onedrive accounts, nothing that a restart doesn't fix though. The problem usually happens if you cannot check off the "Don't let my organization manage my apps." and only use the login to Onedrive. if you can't find the option it could be because the IT admin disabled it from that domain, and that might be the reason why it tries to eat over the other authentications.
As to outlook app? It's a lost cause. Stay on the web. I have used Outlook since 1995, and I can't tell you how many bitter times I had to rescue a corrupted outlook profile over the last 25 years. For me or for a client. It's nasty. Even with a weekly or daily NAS, the headache of losing sometimes a whole business day of work to restore is insane. Outlook as a desktop app is just not fit for large businesses. period. If you have thousands of emails, crashing is just a matter of time. I have given every new major version and update a chance since 1995 and just this past few months a client had their outlook profile crash, completely lost data, on windows 11 and latest version.
As to Teams. Oh man. This is the child of the new wife that Microsoft is caring a bit too much for on the expense of all the other family members.
I mean, yes, it's young. Cute. Ok it has got potential, but the amount of hostile takeover Teams causes on the other Microsoft apps is insane. Outlook Calendar? forget it, Teams Calendar is here and does not like to share. Full O365 policies? Teams comes with its own set of policies. It turned out in one company that despite the policies set to prevent sharing certain sensitive company files via onedrive and outlook with certain external senders or domains... I showed them how their own users could use their own MS work teams to share those files just like that, because the policy wasn't inherited.
Sharepoint and onedrive? don't even think about it. At start I thought, those programmers at Microsoft need to share the same water cooler. Now I could swear they have war rooms planning to take each other down lol.
Anyway, if you're just a normal human trying ambitiously to start their own little beautiful thing and needed some quick way to setup an email or writing tool and ended up in here... all I can say is, I'm sorry. This isn't a Microsoft issue, nor software issue. It is a human thing issue. We created complicated bureaucracies thousands of years before computers. We have thousands of human languages, and we created hundreds of computer languages, with endless possibilities of potential, and very little use for most of them. Engineering schools did not teach people that every feature has a price on the long run. It's literally harder and more expensive to get a minimalist design that works well. It's like you have to pay some designers to just please stop adding more features.
Isn't it ironic that we claim that we use only 5% of our brain - yet we design systems where we only end up needing 5% of them?
Lastly, if it all fails? separate Userprofiles is the way to go, and say goodbye to multitasking across different jobs.
You have money to buy your peace of mind? Buy a device per each work (or demand a work computer/phone if you're in a position to do so.) Single User. Single Device. Single Account.
You have ADHD? God help us all.