Windows 10: Sudden switch from Local User to MS account - can not switch back

Thanks for taking the time to reply again simrick. I do have an external drive and a nightly scheduled task to copy all incremental changed files to the external drive. So, I don't think I will lose anything too important. Just the time consuming stuff that you described is a real time eater and many conveniences that I have set up over the years need to be redone. I'll need to do all that in the next day or two.

 

I do have an external drive and a nightly scheduled task to copy all incremental changed files to the external drive.

Good that you do that. I was hit with ransomware a couple yrs back and had to reinstall OS image. Transferring 400gb of data does take a while and re-setting system pref's, etc does give you an opportunity to fix or change some that may not be right for today. simrick gave you excellent advice, I've changed over many an account that was mis-named or corrupted. Enjoy your repaired system and let's hope the Creator's Update next month doesn't mess anything up for either of us.

 

In that case, and you are *sure* that your backups are not corrupt, you could try deleting the corrupt user account, then restore your backup to the new account (if necessary). That way, you don't run out of space. Just be sure of the integrity of your backup (both main and incrementals)...Yes, it is a time consuming job. I do it in chunks - a little one day, a little the next - so it's not overwhelming.

 

Oh! Sorry to hear that. Glad you had an image to restore. *Smile

 

Any way to copy the taskbar, I know it's probably easier to just repin the apps there but looking for shortcuts as always *Wink

Cheers

 

I would re-pin. The more you "carry-over" from a corrupt account, the higher the chance you have of carrying-over the corruption.

 

Been busy moving files and such ... I think I have saved all the stuff I need to keep and adjusted some scripts to point at the new /Users/mynewaccount. But as far as deleting the old local account goes, I don't see it in control panel nor the new Windows 10 account settings. How do I delete it? I am thinking of just deleting or renaming /Users/oldlocalaccount by some armstrong method but it might break the MS account which I am really not sure if I want to keep anyway since that is what kind of popped out of no-where after a couple of years of using the local account (that is now kaput).

Any suggestions on how to do any final cleanup, check points or stuff like that?

 

When logged into the new account, Control Panel>User Accounts>Manage another account you are not able to delete the corrupt account from there? If not, then perhaps we need to go back to the tutorial for creating an account using Command Prompt, and delete the user account that way....

 

so, I was a bit nervous about deleting the old local account so I chose to disable it via cmd prompt.

My login screen still shows my MS account and when I tried to log in to it, it gave me an incorrect password error, even though it was a valid PW. It looks like the MS account somehow hijacked the old local account. Net users does not show any additional users for the MS account, so it must somehow be tied to that old local account.

If I delete the old local account instead of disabling it, will that make the MS account choice go away from the login screen?

 

Have you gone onto MS website and logged in with your MS account? So you know the password is working and being accepted by MS?

Other people who have had corrupted accounts in the past have made a new account, copied their data over, and then deleted the corrupt account. I have not had anyone come back and say that they had any problems after deleting the corrupted account....however, as we all know, there's always a first time, when Murphy's Law kicks in...*Wink

 

Murphy seems to live at my house ... I just checked my MS account on outlook and it works fine, just gives me a password error when I try to login to Windows. Why wouldn't MS just say it is disabled or something useful and instead try to confuse people.

I will delete the &$*^$ MS account via command prompt and see what else I can break.

 

Wait - I wanted you to go online, using a browser, and login to your MS account that way - have you done that?

 

Try logging in here, and see if your computer is listed in your devices
Sign in to your Microsoft account

 

lrw, I'm sorry but I will be unavailable for several hours now. Were you able to login to your MS account in a browser?

 

Yes, of course. MS live website is outlook.live.com. Sorry for the confusion. Anyhow, I used command prompt to delete the old account and now only have my new local account as a choice for Windows login which is good.

Trying to rename the old /Users/oldLocalAccount but it seems to still be in use. Even after a reboot.