Retiring my own Entra tenant: how can I preserve my existing Tech Community profile?
I have an existing Microsoft Tech Community profile with years of posts, replies, subscriptions, reputation and private messages. The profile is currently accessed using a work/school Microsoft account belonging to a Microsoft Entra tenant that I own and plan to retire (not migrate: retire). When I try to sign in with a personal Microsoft account, Tech Community presents a first-time consent screen, which makes me concerned that it would create a new profile rather than attach to the existing one. Unlike Microsoft Learn, I have not found any option to link accounts, merge identities, or change the sign-in identity for an existing Tech Community profile. Questions: Is there any supported way to preserve access to an existing Tech Community profile after the work/school account used to sign in is no longer available? Is there any supported way to transfer, migrate, associate, merge, relink, or otherwise preserve an existing Tech Community profile and its data? What happens to an existing Tech Community profile if the Microsoft Entra tenant that owns the work/school account is retired? If preserving the existing login identity is not possible, is there a supported way to preserve and transfer all existing profile data (posts, replies, subscriptions, private messages, badges, reputation, groups, follows, etc.) to a new account? I would appreciate guidance from Microsoft staff or anyone who has successfully gone through this process. Thanks!
Microsoft Support Assistant HTTP 500 with non-ASCII account names
Bug Report: Microsoft Support Assistant HTTP 500 with non-ASCII account names Summary Microsoft Support Assistant on support.microsoft.com returns HTTP 500 when the authenticated Microsoft account profile contains non-ASCII characters in the user's name. The same Support Assistant workflow works normally after changing the profile name to ASCII-only characters. This appears to be a server-side defect in the Microsoft Support Assistant / CMSP Peridot backend. Microsoft Support case Case number: 7109874722 Microsoft Consumer Support reviewed the issue and stated that it appeared to be a backend issue in the Support Assistant service and that it should be handled by a dedicated team. However, the case was ultimately closed without an engineering escalation. Initial state My Microsoft account profile contained: Given name: Тимофей Surname: Денисов Steps to reproduce Open https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/home/contact Enter: Gaming Services GameInput MSI detection defect Select Get Help Select Ask our Support Assistant Send the request. The Support Assistant sends a POST request to its backend Stream endpoint. The request returns: HTTP 500 Response body: {"error":"Request headers must contain only ASCII characters."} I reproduced the failure twice in the captured session. Browser-side HTTP headers The HTTP request headers sent by Firefox contain only ASCII characters. Therefore, the error does not appear to be caused by a non-ASCII HTTP header sent by the browser itself. The browser-side HAR shows the HTTP 500 response being returned by support.microsoft.com. A/B reproduction I then changed my Microsoft account profile to ASCII-only values: Given name: Timofey Surname: Denisov After making this change, I repeated the same Support Assistant workflow. The HTTP 500 error no longer occurred. Therefore, the observed behavior is: Microsoft account name contains Cyrillic characters ↓ Support Assistant ↓ HTTP 500 "Request headers must contain only ASCII characters." Microsoft account name changed to ASCII-only ↓ Same Support Assistant workflow ↓ No HTTP 500 This provides a reproducible A/B test showing a strong correlation between non-ASCII characters in the authenticated profile name and the server-side failure. Relevant data observed in the HAR The authenticated profile information includes the original Unicode values. The CMSP session initialization also contains: "UserDisplayName":"Тимофей" The Support Assistant Init request itself succeeds. The subsequent Stream request fails with HTTP 500. Relevant correlation IDs: 3b5e8862-81d1-4797-8f7b-8a05ffcc2b89 9829ec10-4d5a-4687-9ad9-ce2ea4c8b7db Additional environment information: Environment: emerald-prod-we Build: v20260923.1.official Browser: Firefox 157.0 OS: Windows 11 Enterprise 25H2 x64 Possible technical cause The exact internal request that fails cannot be observed from the browser-side HAR. However, the error message: Request headers must contain only ASCII characters. is consistent with a .NET HTTP client rejecting a non-ASCII value while constructing an outbound HTTP request. One possible explanation is that a value derived from the authenticated user's profile, such as GivenName, Surname, or UserDisplayName, is being inserted into an internal HTTP request header without appropriate encoding or validation. This is a hypothesis; the exact internal header and downstream request need to be determined from server-side telemetry. Expected behavior The Support Assistant should successfully process requests regardless of whether the authenticated Microsoft account contains Unicode characters in the user's name. At minimum, a valid Unicode profile value should not cause an HTTP 500 response from the Support Assistant backend. Actual behavior A Microsoft account profile containing Cyrillic characters causes the Support Assistant Stream request to return HTTP 500: {"error":"Request headers must contain only ASCII characters."} Changing only the profile name to ASCII-only characters removes the failure. Request Please investigate this as a Microsoft Support Assistant / CMSP Peridot backend defect. In particular, please check the server-side telemetry for the correlation IDs above and determine: Which internal HTTP request generated the ASCII-header exception. Which HTTP header contained the non-ASCII value. Which profile field supplied that value. Why the value was allowed to reach an HTTP header rather than being encoded, transformed, or rejected earlier. Whether other Microsoft Support Assistant users with non-ASCII account names are affected. I have the original HAR capture containing the complete browser-side HTTP exchange. I have not attached the full HAR publicly because it contains authentication/session information. The exact backend endpoint and the complete HAR can be provided through an appropriate private Microsoft support channel if required.
How to change my contact details on my MS Onedrive account
I have long had an MS account which I use for One Drive and also pay monthly for extra storage. I want to KEEP everything as it is EXCEPT: my login for that account is (still) what was until recently my main email address and I have used it for almost two decades. But changes at my ISP which DID run the email service but no longer does that and the ISP has sold the email service to an outfit who are truly awful mean that I am in the process of changing my contact details, i.e. my contact email address, to a new bespoke address - I registered a domain name and use that for email. NB The new outfit took over in the spring and in taking over the server they LOST all my emails stored on it. I have since been able to track down half of them, but many important emails have been lost for ever. They are a disaster and I have to make serious changes and I very soon hope to ditch that old email address completely. That brings me to my question: I need to change the login and details of my One Drive account. But I HAVE to keep ALL the files store on One Drive as well as keep the storage space I am renting. Microsoft’s ‘help’ FAQ are worse than useless, confusing and send us round in circles. So could someone from Microsoft help me out and advise me? If you want more details, please get in touch. PS It does NOT help that when trying to post this, I get an error warning and highlighting in red a sentence but no indication as to what might be wrong.What is the best Dell laptop for digital marketing and video editing?
Hi everyone, I'm looking for recommendations for a Dell laptop that can handle both digital marketing work and video editing. My main requirements are: - Smooth performance with multiple browser tabs and marketing tools - Good CPU and enough RAM for multitasking - Dedicated graphics for video editing - Good display and color accuracy - Fast SSD storage - Good cooling and battery life - Reliable performance for long working sessions I'm considering different Dell models but would appreciate recommendations from people who have actually used them for similar workloads. Which Dell laptop would you recommend, and what model/specifications have worked well for you? thanks in advance!
Mailbox automatically Pinning every new incoming email - Desktop and Mobile
I have a user that, whenever they receive a new email, that email will automatically pin to the top of their inbox. We have tried to recreate the outlook profile Adjust and create mail rules to not pin emails Modify settings within webmail Remove all flags and all disable all setting pertaining to flagging and pinning Reset customization reset nav panes reinstalled office Tested in the "new outlook" On the mobile side, Deleted all mail profiles Installed the outlook app instead of the ios mail app made sure he has no specific mailbox retention or policies that would apply a setting like this This issue has been going on for months with no sign of being fixed. pretty much nothing at all has stuck and the issue persists. I am a systems admin, so i have the ability work on this from the backend. My entire team is just at a loss with this issue.Mailbox automatically Pinning every new incoming email - Desktop and Mobile
I have a user that, whenever they receive a new email, that email will automatically pin to the top of their inbox. We have tried to recreate the outlook profile Adjust and create mail rules to not pin emails Modify settings within webmail Remove all flags and all disable all setting pertaining to flagging and pinning Reset customization reset nav panes reinstalled office Tested in the "new outlook" On the mobile side, Deleted all mail profiles Installed the outlook app instead of the ios mail app made sure he has no specific mailbox retention or policies that would apply a setting like this This issue has been going on for months with no sign of being fixed. pretty much nothing at all has stuck and the issue persists. I am a systems admin, so i have the ability work on this from the backend. My entire team is just at a loss with this issue.What’s New in the MTC? September 2023 – Community Ranks
Our Mission at the MTC is to provide a community Microsoft users can get the latest news, ask questions, learn new skills, and connect with peers and Microsoft experts from around the world. This month, we are rolling out a new ranking system designed to recognize users’ contributions to the community and add a little more ‘Microsoft’ to the MTC. What are the Community Ranks? We now have two ranking ladders to recognize both types of our tech community members. We have our Contributors Ranks for those who come to the MTC to interact and ask/answer questions in our forums, blogs, and events. Some of you Microsoft gamers may notice the subtle nod 😉 Contributor Ranks Onyx Contributor Titanium Contributor Diamond Contributor Platinum Contributor Gold Contributor Silver Contributor Bronze Contributor Steel Contributor Iron Contributor Brass Contributor Copper Contributor And for our members who come to the MTC to catch up on news and learn something new from the blogs, we have our Reader Ranks! These are replacing our Visitor/Member ranks, and once you start posting in the MTC, you will move into the Contributor Ranks. Reader Ranks Senior Reader Prolific Reader Regular Reader Frequent Reader Casual Reader Occasional Reader New Reader (Please note that these rankings are intended for fun and are not a measure of MTC’ers technical competence.) What goes into the Community Ranks? When you become a member of the MTC, you start climbing the ranking ladder, starting as a New Reader. As you contribute more and more to the community, you will start to climb the rank ladder. Here are some of the key ingredients that go into our ranking recipe (*These points are awarded each time an activity is completed): Viewing messages (0.25 points) Commenting on blogs, ideas, and TKB articles (1 point) Creating new discussion topics (1 point) Replying to forum discussions (2 points) Giving (2 points) and receiving Kudos (4 points) Contributing Ideas (5 points) Authoring blog articles (10 points) Publishing Knowledge Base articles (10 points) Getting your replies marked as a solution (15 points) Simply put, the more you engage and interact with the MTC, the more points you earn and the higher your community ranking will be! If you have any questions on these new rankings or you’d like to share feedback with the Tech Community Team, let us know in the comments below.
