Windows 10: Story of Microsoft locking a user account gives a prime example of what you should never do

Many Windows users sign in using a Microsoft account. They may just type a pin or use biometric authentication to get in, but the core mechanic that allows all that is linked to a Microsoft account. While there are methods to bypass Windows 11's Microsoft account requirement, most users are unaware of them.

A Reddit user claimed recently that Microsoft locked their account. It is but one of many horror stories about locked accounts that surfaced over the years. Users lose access to all associated data, including purchases, Xbox games, uploaded files, and more.

Tip: check out remedies, if you get your account is currently unavailable.

Here is how it went down according to the user. The user needed to move photos and work from "multiple old drives" and the plan that they came up with was to park the files on OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage service, before moving them to a new hard drive later.

Microsoft did suspend the account of the customer before the last part of the migration. This meant that the user could not access the files anymore, as access to them was blocked due to the locked account. The user did not mention whether the photos and work files were still accessible on the old drives or not.

Eighteen appeals, all automated, lead nowhere. The account remained locked and with it the 30 years of the user's history. This makes it sound as if the files are no longer accessible on the old drives.

What may have happened


The user says that Microsoft did not provide a reason why it locked the account. This may very well be the case, as messages may be very vague in this regard.

If I had to bet, I'd put my money on OneDrive as the culprit. It is possible that OneDrive's automatic image scanner detected something that it believed was nudity, which is not allowed according to the terms of service.

According to the Microsoft Service Agreement, users are not allowed to upload, post, transmit, transfer, distribute, or facilitate the distribution of any content that depicts nudity of any sort, including full or partial human nudity or nudity in non-human forms such as cartoons, fantasy art, or manga.

Another possibility is one or multiple false positives, e.g., child sexual abuse material, which usually gives instant bans.

The user did not specify the type of photos or work uploaded to OneDrive.

What you may learn from that


Stories about locked accounts appear frequently on the Internet. They are often picked up, sometimes by large enough publications that force Microsoft's hand.

Here is what other Microsoft customers may learn from the incident:

• Never upload photos, images or video content to OneDrive. Even if harmless, all it takes is a false positive to get an account locked, or worse. The same is true for all other online storage services out there, at least those that do automatic scans of files that you upload.
• When you need to migrate data from older drives, use local backups as temporary storage, or wait until you have the new drive. Try external hard drive cases if you can't connect multiple drives to your PC (e.g. laptop).
• Using Microsoft's appeal system is usually a waste of time. If you are sure that you did not do anything wrong, try contacting large media outlets. They love those stories.

Now You: have another tip or suggestions what the user could have done differently? Feel free to leave a comment down below. (via Neowin)

Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Story of Microsoft locking a user account gives a prime example of what you should never do appeared first on gHacks Technology News.

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Local Acct user and MS account user - sync them or merge them

Thank you. I will give it a try later today and post my results.

Got to it sooner than I thought.
Your method worked perfectly.

Thank you

 

Local Acct user and MS account user - sync them or merge them

If the local account is the one where you have most of your personal data, this is how I would do it:

• Sign in to your Microsoft account
  
• Copy all documents, pictures and other personal data from Microsoft account's user folders to corresponding folders in user Public (contents of MS account Documents folder to Public Documents folder and so on)
• Sign out from Microsoft account

Notice that above steps are only required if Microsoft account user folders contain data you want to keep. If its user folders are empty or do not contain anything worth saving, you can skip the above steps. Continue from below.

• Sign in to the local account
  
• Delete the Microsoft account (Option One in this tutorial)
• Switch your local account to a Microsoft account (tutorial)
• Copy the data backed up from old Microsoft account to Public folders to new Microsoft account in corresponding folders

That's it. Using the Public folders as temporary storage you will have none whatsoever file owner / permission issues later on.

 

microsoft accounts vs. prime user

Hi Cajim43 -

This is Orlando, an Independent advisor and an expert with Windows 10. I understand that you would like to add a user on your computer for your email for 365 but computer doesn't want you to add one.

Please follow the steps below to manually add local account user on your computer.

1. Open the command prompt with administrator access

2. Type each command below and hit enter,

* To add a local account user

net user (account name) /add >> Change the (account name) to your desired user profile name

* To make the added user as administrator on your computer

net localgroup administrators (account name) /add >> change the (account name) on the name that you put on step 2

3. Switch to the new user profile and make the necessary changes that you want.

Hope this helps, have a good day.

Thanks,



Independent Advisor