Windows 10: Cunundrum: Merging Local Admin Account and Microsoft Family Admin/Parent account.

Contents

This is a little bit of a multifaceted question, so here are the contents:

1. What I want and why?
2. What precisely is the problem?
3. What specifically do I want to know?

What I want and why: A non-convoluted system to manage my attention when behind my computers.

I have two devices. On my desk sits a laptop for work/study, and before the couch stands a TV-like computer for leisure: watching videos and news. The two devices are in separate places desk vs. couch in my room to keep the activities separated.


I want each of the devices to have three synchronised family microsoft accounts.

1. A "study" child account which is restricted from accessing youtube and newssites.
2. A "leisure" child account which is restricted from being accessed during work hours and sleep hours.
3. An "admin" account which has both parental rights and administrator rights. The passwords to this account are long, random, and put away in a password manager. This way, I do have full control over all the restrictions and the inner workings of my devices, but it is cumbersome to change things on an impulse.

Luckily, the synchronisation of microsoft family accounts accross devices allows me to use all accounts on all devices, which is a flexibility that I might want someday. For instance, if I have a CPU-heavy game that the much older TVcomputer cannot handle, I could install it on my Study Laptop on the leisure account, but I could then only play it outside work hours, which is good.


Now there are a lot of passwords that come with this. Each of the accounts have a microsoft password and a PIN on each device. This is mostly fine; I have a safe password manager for the admin passwords and my regular accounts aren't admins and have simpler, more often used passwords. But it is kinda important that the password system not the passwords themselves don't get too convoluted.


What precisely is the problem?

Both of my devices run windows 10, and one of them works as described above. Thus it should be possible what I want to achieve. On the other, only my non-admin accounts are synchronised as expected. The admin account is a local one, which needs to be merged with the parent microsoft account, and then I'd be done. But that is not as easy as I thought.


On this forum, Louie Del gave a good guide on how to merge a local admin account with a microsoft admin account. It sits here:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...icrosoft/03037793-0328-46d2-8995-f83847d2b9dc. If I go to the settings submenu where I am supposed to be, it reads "manage your microsoft account" where it should read "sign in with a microsoft account instead". I vaguely remember going through Louies' process before, so maybe the accounts are already merged.


Except the passwords do not get synchronized. If I install a program on the device, it will ask me for the password to the Admin account, but it will only accept the old local admin account password, instead of the new MS account password. This was very frsutrating. On top of this, I can allow my MS parent account to log in on my device separately from my admin account, so now we have two accounts that seem associated to the same MS account. And the other device does have its admin be the MS family parent account, so it can work. However, I think I may have configured that on the first boot so that there never was a local account on my TV I don't know that might be an option.


I want to be able to often change my admin password, and with this half-merged state I need to change two passwords, and keep them separately in my password manager. This is more work for changing passwords and the entire setup is more cluttered, which is harder to keep track of in my mind. If I am asked an admin password, I've deliberately made it inconvenient but possible to find it, but that doesn't mean that I should be confused about which password I even need, because that is frustration I did not intend to have. For convenience and my own sanity I'd like to have all admin accounts on all my devices be the MS version, with the same password and one PIN per device. To do that I would need to merge or replace my local admin account with the MS admin account.


So what do I want to know?

1 Is it possible to merge my local Admin account with my MS Family parent account directly, similar to Louie Dels' answer?

• If so, how? Did I do something wrong? Or are there other ways I am unaware of?

2 Is it possible to replace my local Admin account with my MS Family parent account, by allowing it to log in on my computer, giving it admin rights, porting everything over and deleting the other account.

• What can and cannot be easily ported over from one account to another? What should I be aware of?
• Are there drastic unforseen consequences to deleting the local Admin account that I had, given there still is an MS admin account? Could I experiment and undo it if I didn't like in the sense that I can create a new local account, give it admin rights, port everything over and removing the MS account from that device and get back the same state as I have now? Or will that somehow destroy my computer?

3 Is it wise not to have a local admin account separately from any MS accounts.

• Why would it be unwise?
• What are the trade-offs between the two options?
• Should I consider having a local admin account on the other device where the admin isindeed a MS account?

:)

 

Merging a Microsoft account to a Local Admin account.

I did a fresh reinstall of Windows 10, and I used my Microsoft account in the setup process.

I want to use a local admin account, so I can access my local file server (it doesn't show up in my microsoft account at all).

Can I merge the accounts, or do I have to copy the data from the microsoft one to the local and go that route?

 

Merging a Microsoft account to a Local Admin account.

Hi,



Welcome to Microsoft Community. Your interest in Windows 10 is much appreciated.



You cannot merge the Microsoft account with local account. However you can convert Microsoft account to local account.



If you want to access the data of local account, you can access it if your Microsoft account is admin account. Meanwhile you can also put the files or pictures in Public folder so that you can access those files through both the accounts.

1.Open This PC.

2.Go to C drive.

3.Click on Users.

4.Select the user and click on Public folder.

Keep us posted if you face any issues on windows in future. We will be glad to help you.

 

Bypass Family Settings by conversion to Local Account


What you describe should be impossible. To test this I just now created a child account on my PC and signing in to it tried to change it to either an admin account or a local account. Could not do that.

The only way your son can change his account to a local account and "remove" it from Family, or create a new account is to have access to an admin account on that same PC (your account), or alternatively access to your admin MS account's Family settings online. For that he needs both your MS account username and password. It means that if you protect your own personal admin account (MS account) with a strong password and especially the Two-Step Verification, he has no way to access that account and he should not be able / is not able to change your Family settings or his account status.