Windows 10: Replacing Microsoft Account Administor E-Mail Address

Hello,

I recently changed my e-mail address and then logged into my Microsoft account. The administrator account still shows my old e-mail address under my account name. How to I change my old admin account e-mail address with my new e-mail address?


Thank you

:)

 

Can no longer log-in as administrator after Windows 10 Update

Thanks Linney,

Yes, I did receive a confirmation e-mail from MS after I successfully changed my Microsoft Account password.

However, there is nothing to do because the instructions from MS say,

"If this was you, then you can safely ignore this email." There is no requirement to confirm the change. The password change procedure, however, does require that the "Password reset code" be entered, which I did.

I already registered my e-mail address long ago and that's not the issue. The issue is that my PC no longer recognizes my password and this is very serious as it is my Administor Account. Every other device does accept the new password, however.

 

E-mail mix up

I have 2 e-mail addresses one I use as my administrator's account address for my Microsoft windows account. The other I use for my e-mail address. When I try to change the administrator account address to the one that is the same as my e- mail account
I get that my e-mail account is not available. I do not get that how can my e-mail address be unavailable if I get mail through it. If I try to use my administrator's account e-mail I can't find it.

 

Step 1: Switch to a local account (tutorial)

Step 2: Switch back to a Microsoft account using the new Microsoft account email address (tutorial)

 

Are both the old and new, Microsoft accounts ? Be sure the User folders (Desktop, Pictures, Music, etc) under your old account are backed up, in case they are lost or unsatisfactorily renamed in the switch. You can also go to http://account.microsoft.com and sign in with your new account and you should see your device listed on your account page

 

Switching from old MS account to a local and then to new MS account does nothing to user profile and personal content. A sworn backup advocate as I am, in this case backup is unnecessary. User profile and user folders including their content remain intact.

The above is absolutely completely 100% sure.

 

Agree with Kari, as usual! And that is exactly why I always create a local user account first. Because I want to control what folder name I get under users. Then I can convert that local account to any Microsoft account I choose and back to a local account and the folder name under users stays exactly the same.

 

Exactly.

The point here is that a user can switch between a local and Microsoft account as often as she / he pleases. User profile, its name & folders and their content always remain intact.

Always.

Nothing bad can happen simply by switching from a local to a Microsoft account or vice versa.

 

Well, I said usually agree, but not this time. @Kari, how many times have you read a thread in the forum and scratched your heading thinking, "How in the world did that ever happen?" Granted, the very large percentage of those problems have come from something being corrupted in the Windows 10 install, user configuration, or user error. I agree on a proper Windows 10 system switching between a local and Microsoft account is 99.9999% safe. But there are a lot of people out there withOUT a proper Windows 10 system installed

 

I repeat: switching from a local account to a Microsoft account, user profile and all user profile content will remain intact. Nothing (again, I repeat: Nothing!) bad will happen, no data will be lost.

Never. This is one of the safest if not the safest procedures / changes in Windows.

 

Kari; first off a backup can't hurt. There are many threads here, where a person, say Sherman Williams, wants the This PC folders named 'Sherman' yet they're assign 'swill' because his MS acct is L: swilliams328@***.com and only the first 5 characters are used. Or, the desktop is lost when restarted and a Temp profile is signed in. So, I advised backup, just in case.

That said, I gave my advice to the op, based on a personal situation. I bought, configured and gave two laptops to family members in other states. On both computers, to minimize the chance of virus or malware contamination, the family member is a Local User with no admin rights. I can remotely sign in via Teamviewer to assist or update programs under my MS sign-in or Teamviewer acct. Both computers have minimal personal files under This PC but both do both have a folder containing all installed programs under Downloads which differ on both.

On one, I used the same MS acct as on mine, on the other I used a secondary MS acct of mine. As expected, on my primary MS account page, both my device and the gifted one show up and the OneDrive files are synced. On the other it is listed on the 2nd MS acct page. So far, so good.

If I'm reading your answer correctly, are you telling me that, on the computer listed to my primary MS acct, say Geek1, I can, when signed in as Local Acct, sign in with my other MS acct, Geek2, and all the folders on that device will still be named C;\Users\Geek1 and vice-versa ? Will all 3 users now be listed on the Log-in screen or just the Local and last MS acct ?

I think this is the same context as the op in post 1, if both email accts he is talking about are MS accts. How does signing in with a new MS email acct transfer the profile info to the new sign-in ? I defer to your expertise and look forward to some clarification, in case this situation comes up on any other computers that I service remotely. Thanks and cheers.

 

I am as I mentioned earlier an advocate for backup stressing its importance, a slogan I often repeat to newbies is "The three most important things in computing are backup, backup and backup".

That being said, backup is like AV scan in the sense how often they are unnecessary suggested, when it should be done can be and sometimes is overly exaggerated. I have some smirk in my face when I read suggestions that the first thing an OP has to do is to run all possible virus and malware scans when OP was simply asking why svchost.exe in Task Manager sometimes shows it's using 10% of CPU, just to give an example of that overly hyped panic.

The same with backup. Painting horror scenarios is of course one way to act for some people but telling an OP that before switching for instance a Microsoft account to a local account he / she needs first make a full image backup is like telling users that always before you sign out from your user account you have to do a full backup.

Absolutely unnecessary. Personally I do not like us senior geeks painting a picture in newbie's eyes that Windows can crash any second when doing regular safe maintenance, or that each and every thing that happens is always a sign of malware infection, that if you do not backup or scan AT THIS VERY SECOND everything will be lost.

No harm done of course if OP chooses to make a full backup every time he / she signs out, signs in, launches an app, has watched a video etc. but it really sometimes is like in these sample cases just waste of time and unnecessary use of storage space on backup storage media.

That does in no way mean backing up regularly and especially before and after major changes in system is waste of time. No. I'm just trying to rationalize this. There's correct time for AV scan, for backup and so on. Exaggerating the need serves no purpose, benefits no user.

You are reading it correctly.

A hypothetical scenario:

Mr. John Doe has clean installed Windows 10 using his Microsoft account (from here on MSA) john.doe_2017@outlook.com. His Windows sign-in username is therefore john.doe_2017@outlook.com, his display name (for instance in sign-in screen) John Doe (the name given in MSA settings on https://account.microsoft.com), his username and userprofile name johnd, and his full (long) username for all networking, remote and other purposes DemoPC\johnd (assuming DemoPC is the name of his PC).

Now John switches to a local account naming it Dummy (when switching to a local account, you will be asked if you want to keep the original username, in this case johnd, or use another local account name). Signing out John will now see only one user in user selection / sign-in screen, his new local account Dummy. Signing in to that he will see that his userprofile is still in folder C:\Users\johnd.

John don't like username Dummy and changes it to . Now sign-in screen would show him as , userprofile still in C:\Users\johnd.

Not satisfied, wanting to change back to an MSA John switches to MSA TenForums@outlook.com. Welcome / sign-in screen would still show just one user, this time TenForums@outlook.com. Signing in to that account John's userprofile would still be in C:\Users\johnd.

Whatever name John uses, changing local account username or switching to various MSA, all the time just one user will be shown in Welcome / sign-in screen. The display name shown for this single user varies depending on what was the last account switch (local <> MSA), or local account name change.

The user profile through all these changes would remain intact, that original C:\Users\johnd. The only (sensible and recommend) way to change the name of the userprofile and profile folder is to create a new user and copy content from old profile to new profile, then remove the old user and profile. It is important to realize and remember that whatever username changes and account switches between local and MSA you do, the userprofile will always remain named as it was when the account was originally created.

I hope the above makes some sense, not being too unclear explained.

 

"The only (sensible and recommend) way to change the name of the user profile and profile folder is to create a new user and copy content from old profile to new profile, then remove the old user and profile."
If I never have to do this again, I'd be very happy. *Redface
The OS setup dialogue is just poor, as to what you want your User name to be and I get on computers all the time where people didn't understand that the profile name was tied to the email acct by default. Before I configure any computer, I always ask and double check what User name a person wants BEFORE I start the setup or repair.

"It is important to realize and remember that whatever username changes and account switches between local and MSA you do, the user profile will always remain named as it was when the account was originally created."
Thanks for clearing this up. I do not have a Local acct on my own device. So, I created one, signed in with my other MS acct and just like you said, nothing changed. I went to my secondary MS acct page and my device was not listed, just the remote computer under that account. I did a system restore which I set up just before all this and of course, I got signed into a Temp profile from which I signed out and all was good on 2nd try. Do not know why profile gets corrupted sometimes but I know enough to sign right back out and not panic that my desktop and files are gone. *Redface
The bottom line, my initial skepticism was because all my remote computers have Local Users with their own names and files so I was concerned with losing my files using another email acct. What I learned from all this is that the Admin profile is tied to the initial device setup and doesn't matter which MS email acct is used to sign in with. Thanks again, Kari

 

Just one more detail I feel important enough to repeat it every now and then, in different profile / user account related threads:

Many of us think that what the profile name will be is irrelevant, I'll just create my user account as a Microsoft account. Funny enough, a bit later on we start to feel annoyed when we, as that John Doe in my previous post, start to repeatedly see our name written in Users folder and Command Prompt and wherenot as johnd, or suemc, or llaff instead of John, Sue or Larry.

My recommendation has always been, is and will be (as long as Microsoft account will use this 5 character abbreviation as user profile name) to always create your user accounts as local account, using that name you want your user profile being named as.

Then, when signed in to desktop first time you can immediately switch to a Microsoft account yet you will have your preferred username and user profile name.

User Larry Laffer with a Microsoft account email L: l.laffer@AnyEmail.com will be llaff if account is created as Microsoft account. Creating the account first as local account he can name it as Larry The Man if he so wishes, then switch to Microsoft account keeping that profile name.

 

"always create your user accounts as local account, using that name you want your user profile being named as.
Then, when signed in to desktop first time you can immediately switch to a Microsoft account yet you will have your preferred username and user profile name."
Good advice. People see all the emphasis on setting up with a MS acct or signing up and never get to this option and it's implications. Cheers.