Elderly geek in password hell!

Win 11 Ver 25H2 Build 26200.7623

Woke up one morning an old man. Use-ta be a geek but lately I been runnin' a local account, mainly using my computer for mail, news, and Bach, so I've forgotten a lot of stuff. I am now in password hell good and proper. Trying to put my sister-in-law on my Office 365, I reset my MS account using the "Forgot password" function but am stymied by the request for my original pw ( No clue.) to finish the recovery. Some of my passwords are years old and used only once. I keep them in a spreadsheet.

How can I get out of this?

Get a code for your forgotten password via the Email account you used to create your Microsoft account
If you connected your Smart Phone as another device to verify your account, you can use that.
if you have a smart phone, you can use the Microsoft Authenticator to authenticate your account

if you have used your password at any time in the browser the password should be saved there.
if its Edge browser please look in

click the 3 dots . . . on the top right of the browser
on this drop down menu click > settings

within settings click the second item down
'passwords and autofill'

then click 'Microsoft password manager'
there will be a list of passwords there
hopefully with the one you need.

best of luck Steve ..

As you said, yesterday's multiply rejected password was there for "live.com". I have never used live.com (that I know of). A line of text told me that (only) a MS app could sign me in but Excel came up just fine without doing so.

FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

I think I am stuck in my local account and cannot get out. Every time I change the password, it's for THAT account.

In one of the help pages, it said that failure to log-in for more than two years would result in the account being closed. That could be possible, I can't remember. Nonetheless, they take my money every year for the Office 365 subscription and tell me I'll have to pony-up in November. As that "office" page shows both my computer and my wife's, how can my account be closed?

All morning wasted and I'm still in password hell. How do I get the attention of some person who can help me?

Try calling Microsoft

please try logging on to your email account on-line via your usual browser.

click the log in (blue) button and put your email address into the log-in window.
use your 'password' which been saved within the browser

then see if you can log-on to your on-line email account
where you will be able to make any adjustments to payments/subscriptions or Microsoft software that you have purchased.

best of luck Steve ..