Login woes

I just got a new laptop, but I can't use it. The startup process insists on adding my Microsoft account, but for various reasons (ISP with my original address went out of business, etc) I can't log into my Microsoft account. So my laptop is an expensive paperweight until I figure out the login problem.

I've been fighting this for days. I've tried every alternative I can think of. I keep running into things like "Can't log in? OK, log in and we'll fix it." Or "Authenticate with a text to your phone. Whoops that's not working." Or "Enter the last 4 digits of your phone#, which ends in 77. (I enter 6277) That's not the right number, it should end in 77."

I don't know what else to do. I've trolled through the login logic many dozens of times. There doesn't seem to be any way to reach an actual human, including calling on the phone. (I called once and the bot gave me something that didn't work. I called back and now it says "I can't fix that" and hangs up on me.)

Do I need to create a new email address, and use that to create a new Microsoft account? And migrate my other laptops to the new account?

I suggest you
- enable the normally-hidden Built-in Admin [that has the username Administrator], then
- use that to create at least one local Admin account, then
- log in to that new Admin account, then
- disable the Built-in Admin.
Enable or Disable Built-in Administrator Account - ElevenForumTutorials - I think you'll need to use its Option 5.
Account creation & setting up as an Admin are included in
my ditty - Create two spare local, password-protected Admin accounts [post #2] in Windows 10, 11 - TenForums

You'll then be able to worry about MSAccounts as slowly as you wish. I don't use them even though I have one.


Denis

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OK, so once I have a normal Admin login... then what? Use admin powers to change the (forgotten) Microsoft account password? Create a new account?

garyfritz said:

so once I have a normal Admin login

Click to expand...

Do what I've suggested and only worry about other matters when that is done.
I know nothing about resolving your MSAccount problems so I think you'll need to create a new one but if your other computers are using it OK then there might be a way of fixing matters. Create a new thread to ask for help on that specific question.


Denis

Thank you sir. I now know how to reset the password on my MS account login (I think). It won't let me change it yet because I've had too many failed attempts, but it sounds like that lock will expire sometime within 24 hours. I've already spent a lot more than that, so I can wait.

May be of use to you.

Bear in mind that MS accounts have:

- A "main" email address, technically called "primary alias", b/c it can have several "aliases". Each can be an email address or a phone number though MS advises against using phone numbers here. For most people there's only one "alias", the primary one that names the account.

- A "hidden" or "secondary" but very important security address, b/c this is where MS will send you the 6 digit numerical codes to be sure it's you and not "a hacker" who's trying to change any important email address or phone number. Again there can be several of these and again they can be either email addresses or phone numbers.

If you haven't bothered about the latter and you have never changed your "primary alias", you'll only have one "security address" and it will be the "primary alias" too. Another common situation is having two, the "primary alias" and a phone number: modernly, when creating a new account, MS nags you a bit about including a phone number here although it's optional. Some MS directions may assume you have registered a phone number as "security address".

Email addresses, unlike phone numbers or not to the same extent, are "unstable" and if all your security addresses are dead you're out of luck (at least provisionally). This can happen even if you bothered to update a dead "primary alias": this action won't change the "security address" (the place where MS sends the authentication codes), that will still be the older (a typical expiry date across email providers including MS is 2 years) and frequently dead address.

Some months ago I was able to "recover" an account in the latter situation, from a Windows 7 computer (more modern OSs should work as well both as "Edge profile address" or "device address", not sure about older OSs) that already had the address set as "Edge profile". I simply went to https://account.microsoft.com and I could update the security address w/o further authentication.

I could also recover a "lost" account that had been blocked by MS (it may happen if a hacker toys or you toy "too much" with it; I also received once an email from MS urging me to change the password of one of my accounts, what I did w/o more issues in this case -I didn't follow any email link, I used the browser to go straight to https://account.microsoft.com -), through the ACSR form. It is a difficult and uncertain process, but you'll have to do it if the authentication codes are sent to a dead address and you cannot update it.

I hope you can recover your new laptop with the directions in previous posts, using another account or whatever. I'm not expert in managing several accounts in a computer, but I know that if you need (or want) another MS account you'll need another email address for it. And other basic rule: an email address that has been used as "primary alias" of an MS account and removed from there afterwards, cannot be re-used again for another or the same MS account. If it's an MS email address (hotmail.com , outlook.com ,...) this means you lose it and its stored contents like messages in the cloud. If it isn't MS's, neither of the latter will happen (MS does only control its servers) but you won't be able to use it again for any MS account.