I have a Microsoft Account and I know my password, FOR CERTAIN. My account identifier is my Gmail address.
I was very worried about the risk of losing files to spontaneous file and directory synching events as a result of having 2 Windows laptops and only 1 Microsoft Account. So I somehow made both of my Windows systems "local". For one of my laptops it was easy, I just reinstalled Windows in a local manner. For the other laptop I cannot remember how it was done but I somehow made it stop accessing my Microsoft Account so it seems to be a local system. In both cases, the laptops do not use OneDrive which was the purpose of making my systems local. I know there are other ways of avoiding OneDrive but they seemed unreliable and I was still seeing OneDrive prompts on my screen. I decided to use local configurations which do not seem to do worrisome things in the aspect of OneDrive.
For a reason unrelated to this thread, I wanted to know the last 5 characters of my Office 2016 activation key. Before learning there is a command line way to find out, I tried to sign into my Microsoft Account because it might be there.
Going to myaccount.microsoft.com I see a message "You can't sign in here with a personal account. Use your work or school account instead." I don't have a work or school account. So I clicked "Sign-in options" for an alternative way to sign in.
One alternative is to use a PIN and I believe I was prompted to create a PIN. I'm not sure but I believe another alternative was to create an Outlook.com Email address which I refused to do because I don't want more Email addresses. Regardless, I created a PIN and so I am no longer prompted to create an outlook.com Email address .
Now when I try to sign into my Microsoft Account using the PIN it says "We couldn't sign you in".
I clicked "sign-in another way". It requires my email address so I typed my Gmail address.
It now says "You can't sign in here with a personal account. Use your work or school account instead." And that looks like something I've seen before so Microsoft is forcing me to iterate an infinite loop which I don't have time for.
When I use Ubuntu and myaccount.microsoft.com on Firefox it will not let me sign in even though I know my password, FOR CERTAIN. I see the "work or school" account suggestion again.
Will I never be able to sign into my Microsoft Account unless I resort to using online configurations of Windows ?
Addendum : I see a new behaviour on Ubuntu. When I go to live.com I can enter my Gmail address. Instead of prompting for my Microsoft Account password, it volunteers to send a 6 digit code to my Gmail. I used the 6 digit code. Now it wants me to create an Outlook.com address which I really want to avoid doing. There seems to be no way around this problem.
Why does live.com behave differently from myaccount.microsoft.com ? Clear as mud.
I was very worried about the risk of losing files to spontaneous file and directory synching events as a result of having 2 Windows laptops and only 1 Microsoft Account. So I somehow made both of my Windows systems "local". For one of my laptops it was easy, I just reinstalled Windows in a local manner. For the other laptop I cannot remember how it was done but I somehow made it stop accessing my Microsoft Account so it seems to be a local system. In both cases, the laptops do not use OneDrive which was the purpose of making my systems local. I know there are other ways of avoiding OneDrive but they seemed unreliable and I was still seeing OneDrive prompts on my screen. I decided to use local configurations which do not seem to do worrisome things in the aspect of OneDrive.
For a reason unrelated to this thread, I wanted to know the last 5 characters of my Office 2016 activation key. Before learning there is a command line way to find out, I tried to sign into my Microsoft Account because it might be there.
Going to myaccount.microsoft.com I see a message "You can't sign in here with a personal account. Use your work or school account instead." I don't have a work or school account. So I clicked "Sign-in options" for an alternative way to sign in.
One alternative is to use a PIN and I believe I was prompted to create a PIN. I'm not sure but I believe another alternative was to create an Outlook.com Email address which I refused to do because I don't want more Email addresses. Regardless, I created a PIN and so I am no longer prompted to create an outlook.com Email address .
Now when I try to sign into my Microsoft Account using the PIN it says "We couldn't sign you in".
I clicked "sign-in another way". It requires my email address so I typed my Gmail address.
It now says "You can't sign in here with a personal account. Use your work or school account instead." And that looks like something I've seen before so Microsoft is forcing me to iterate an infinite loop which I don't have time for.
When I use Ubuntu and myaccount.microsoft.com on Firefox it will not let me sign in even though I know my password, FOR CERTAIN. I see the "work or school" account suggestion again.
Will I never be able to sign into my Microsoft Account unless I resort to using online configurations of Windows ?
Addendum : I see a new behaviour on Ubuntu. When I go to live.com I can enter my Gmail address. Instead of prompting for my Microsoft Account password, it volunteers to send a 6 digit code to my Gmail. I used the 6 digit code. Now it wants me to create an Outlook.com address which I really want to avoid doing. There seems to be no way around this problem.
Why does live.com behave differently from myaccount.microsoft.com ? Clear as mud.
Last edited:
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 11
- OS
- Windows 11
