How can I reliably remove machines from my Microsoft account?

I have two Microsoft accounts that I just converted to passwordless accounts. While making this change, I thought that I would do a little bit of housekeeping. Part of that was going to be to delete old machines from my account. You see, one of the limitations is that for the Microsoft Store, you can have only ten machines associated with the Store and on each of my accounts I have WAY more than ten machines. For example, every time I do some testing where I stand up a VM and associate it with my account, that's a new machine assigned to my account.

The problem that I am having is that many of these devices just seem to be undeletable. I will select a machine and chose to delete it from my account management web page, and it will tell me that it successfully deleted that machine, but it remains in my list of machines.

For some machines, I simply get this when I try to delete it:



I guess that this is kind of thing that causes trust issues for me with the Microsoft accounts. If even the official web site for managing your accounts simply doesn't work correctly or throws errors at you, it makes one a little bit dubious

Does anyone know if there is some alternative method for removing machines from the MS account?

If the devices are not online it may take a day or two for the removal to complete.

Why do not you use a separate MSA for VM? You can have as many MSAs you want.

MS does not even allow to log out of a single device, unlike Google, there is only the nuke option.

hsehestedt said:

Does anyone know if there is some alternative method for removing machines from the MS account?

Click to expand...

Based on my experiences, here is how I remove these Microsoft accounts, including the ghost entries for the Microsoft store:

* Remove the Microsoft account from Windows 11 (Settings > Account > Your accounts and Access work or school) and any Microsoft apps (MS 365, Outlook New, etc.) and the Microsoft store. Log the account out. Windows 11 should be using a local account.

* Also check in the Control Panel > Credential Manager and remove any Microsoft account entries (CMD: cmdkey /list).

* Log in to your Microsoft account. Go to Security > Manage how I sign in, scroll down and click on 'Sign out everywhere'. This will end any open or idling session for your Microsoft account.

* Click on Devices in your Microsoft account, remove any device(s) shown.

* Click on the Manage link for Microsoft Store device management and click Unlink of any known or unknown devices. I usually click Unlink several times (just a habit)



* Clear all cookies in Windows and any web browser(s) used with this Microsoft account.

* Leave the Microsoft account signed out for at least 24 hours. When you log back in to the Microsoft account, everything should be removed. If not, try the steps again.

I have had up to 8 blank device entries in Microsoft store before where it took a month to get rid of. You just have to make sure the Microsoft account does not get signed in for anything, otherwise it may make these entries active again.

KevTech said:

If the devices are not online it may take a day or two for the removal to complete.

View attachment 167856

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. It's coming up on 24 hours or so and not one of the machines that were supposedly successfully deleted have disappeared from my account. Some of these are machines that have not even existed any longer for at least a year meaning that they have not logged in for at least that long. I'll simply wait longer to see what happens.

TairikuOkami said:

Why do not you use a separate MSA for VM? You can have as many MSAs you want.

Click to expand...

Because access to the Microsoft Store is limited to 10 machines per account.

Let me clarify that: If you have more than 10 machines, they can all access the store, but any apps registered to your account cannot be installed on more than 10 machines in an account.

Also, Microsoft 365. I use the Family Plan for 365 and that is limited to something like 5 machines total. But, you can share with additional people in your family and then they get 5 installs. I just use my second MS account like another family member so that those machines can also get access to 365.

I call them MS or Store zombies. I just blogged about this last week. It can take up to 180 days for zombie accounts to disappear depending on circumstances. Device Zombies Roam Among Us - Ed Tittel
I've got 3-4 I'm still waiting on to time out. Not to mention an MSA that's tied to an out-of-business email server that itself is a time bomb waiting to explode. Sigh.
--Ed--

Ed Tittel said:

I call them MS or Store zombies. I just blogged about this last week. It can take up to 180 days for zombie accounts to disappear depending on circumstances. Device Zombies Roam Among Us - Ed Tittel
I've got 3-4 I'm still waiting on to time out. Not to mention an MSA that's tied to an out-of-business email server that itself is a time bomb waiting to explode. Sigh.
--Ed--

Click to expand...

I found a way to remove all devices in the Microsoft account, just takes a little time. I use Microsoft Edge InPrivate Mode or Google Chrome Incognito mode while doing this as I do not want to generate any more active cookies.

1. Make sure the Microsoft account is not used on any other devices. If so, sign them completely out of everything. Token cookies transfer among devices and apps logged in with the Microsoft account. Remove all cookies in any web browser that had the Microsoft account logged in. Microsoft does not provide a way to terminate active sessions like Google Chrome does with Google accounts. Just make sure there are no authenticated cookies generated during this process.

2. Remove all devices in the Microsoft account in Devices (https://account.microsoft.com/devices). Microsoft states that devices may remove within 24 hours and up to 72 hours.

3. Unlink all devices shown in Microsoft Store device management (https://account.microsoft.com/devices/content). At times, some devices, with or without a name, appear in the list. I continue to click Unlink a few more times.

Note: You may need to remove cookies in all web browsers that had this Microsoft account logged in right after removing and unlinking all devices.

4. In the Microsoft account go to Security > Manage how I sign in, scroll down to Sign out everywhere, and click Sign out everywhere link.

For 24 hours do NOT log in to this Microsoft account at all. No devices or apps should connect or use the Microsoft account.

This normally removes all ghost and named devices in steps 2 and 3. You may need to repeat the process for ghost (unnamed) devices. I have removed many ghost and named devices in many Microsoft accounts using these steps.

About 96 hours later, and they're finally gone!

I just checked the list at my primary MSA and it's finally been whittled down appropriately, too. My problems caused some to hang around a long time. I get review units from Lenovo, Dynabook and occasional others. I don't always remember to unenroll them and reset the OS when I send them back to their makers. Copilot tells me that even a single logon, days or weeks later, can extend the "zombie life" of a device for 90 days if such a unit even attempts to login to my MSA. That could easily happen the first time they fire up the PC to wipe its image for re-use for example. Sigh.
Thanks for a great discussion. Very helpful.
--Ed--