Source of some of my woes. Network, User account related..

So I think I figured out one of the main reasons I have had trouble sharing within my network. I have been tending to bounce back and forth between Microsoft account and regular local account on my systems. Not like every other week or something, but maybe 2-3 times since I loaded up my machine. I think I started local, went to Microsoft in order to post feedback, and a week or so later went back to local.

I did some fresh installs this time around, and stayed with local accounts. The appeal of local has less to do with my aversion to syncing to the cloud than it does just simply having my username be my email address. Something just FEELS off about that. I hate connecting to a share, and typing in an email address as username. I've been working on machines now for 20+ years, and I guess I am creature of habit. It just does not sit well. Maybe if I had a shorter email address or something, but I am not re-working all that at this stage in the game.

I really wish there was a way to have a local account on my system, but somehow tie that out to a Microsoft account in the cloud, along with my email behind the scenes. I've even had trouble switching after the fact when it seems Windows truncates the name of my profile folder, which then causes other problems throughout the system. Why does my username have to be an email address? Why can't I have a regular local account, tied perhaps to a Microsoft account behind the scenes so I can still provide feedback, use the store, etc, but it does not mess up crap on my local file system?

Here is what gave me the hint that this was causing network problems. Usually, if you are going to host/join a homegroup, you will see a message under homegroup that blahblah user on x machine is hosting a homegroup that you can join. After switching my account from Microsoft, to local, that did not happen. It just said there was a homegroup shared with me that I could join. And no matter what I did to join, I could not join. Anyways, the solution was the recreate user profiles, etc as local only, and recreate the homegroup. How is the avg person supposed to accomplish Windows networking now-a-days? Am I the only one who hates having my email address, say roadwordbound72gmail.com (not really that, but maybe close), as my username? I can't be...

Gotta say, the more I use Windows 10, the less and less thrilled I am with it. Many of my gripes are functional granted, and hopefully they will be more ironed out close to release. Still, there are plenty of philosophical directions they have taken the OS that I just flat can't embrace. Please come on Microsoft.. Give us a gem!!

The other thing that I notice on the machine that I once had a Microsoft account on. If I want to take ownership of a folder that my Microsoft account was once the owner of, I cannot change it to my local account. It is like the two are still somewhat synonymous behind the scenes. So even though I no longer have a Microsoft account, my email address is still the effective owner of that folder/share, and if I try to change it, it does not update.

Further ruminations... The fact that I cannot take ownership of files/folders that were once owned by my account when it was an email address, must mean that somehow my local account and my email are still linked, even though I thought I had made the transition 100% to local. In other words, windows still sees them as synonymous/identical.

I agree 100%. It's harder than it should be.
I have 4 computers networked (3 are for HTPC use - that need to be networked but have no critical/personal data on them and don't need internet access. My 4th computer is my personal use machine.

Since upgrading one of the 3 HTPC machines, I've had a lot of network connection issues. I think it is due to the reasons you stated in your first post.

However, I prefer Win10 over Win8.1 so far, and will upgrade all the machines when the time comes. I just need to be sure not the use the Microsoft account (if I can) and stay with all local accounts. I did a clean install of Win10 and I don't recall a choice not to setup the Microsoft account (actually it was a requirement to get a Preview version).

As I'm not in the computer/IT business, I'm more handicapped with this stuff - so if anyone has any guidance on installing/upgrading to Win10 to prevent these issues (and only setup a local account) - please post back.

There was a way.. You just have to click all the other menus. I forget which, but one of them gave me the option to skip the step creating an account, and just use local. They don't make it obvious or easy.

That skip option is more obvious in 10130.

I have a share access problem that seems to be caused by the local/MS account scenario as well. Thanks to Mystere, and now you, for a headsup.

Interestingly enough, even though I have taken ownership of my files with my local account, and my Microsoft account should have not part of it any longer, the only way I can access certain folders from my downstairs computer is if I type in my email address and password. Really lame...