10 Home Confirm your phone number rejecting valid US number.

I can't imagine any reason whatsoever why I'd want to give Microsoft my phone number ... ?

Galane said:

What is the specific format Windows 10 Home setup demands a USA phone number to be in when entered on the Confirm your phone number screen?

It IS a valid number, it's the number the owner of this laptop used when she called me when she asked me to wipe it and do a clean install. 208549**** (obviously I'm entering the digits, not asterisks) With United States (+1) selected in the dropdown above.

No standard method of formatting a US number is accepted. (208)549-**** (208) 549-****. I even tried +1(208) and +(1)(208) and (+1)(208) at the start. All rejected.

If there is some double super secret special way of formatting the number that is expected here, then at the very least that field should be pre-populated with an example. Better yet would be for it to *force it* to be correct by rejecting all user input other than digits and formatting it itself.

Most websites do this. Microsoft's own products used to do this when entering a keycode. But they can't do it for a phone number?

I never use a Microsoft Account on MY computers. The only reason I'm attempting to do so on this one is because the owner most likely had one due to it being Windows Home and how it forces a Microsoft Account if you don't know to skip connecting to the internet until later.

Have you tried 001208......

idgat said:

I can't imagine any reason whatsoever why I'd want to give Microsoft my phone number ... ?

So you can recover from lost passwords is one reason. 2 factor authentication etc.

I have NEVER had any issues with MS misusing my phone number e.g. spam texts/calls.

You need to have the phone with you if you want to register it to that number, They either send you a text message or call you with a key code Your better off letting them do that

Looking at the number there appears to be a hyphen in it, if this is being included when entering the number then most likely that’s why it fails. If not being entered then ensure the first digit which is usually a 0 is omitted, if you are doing this then try adding the 0 at the beginning.

Galane said:

....The only reason I'm attempting to do so on this one is because the owner most likely had one due to it being Windows Home and how it forces a Microsoft Account if you don't know to skip connecting to the internet until later.

If you set it up with a local account it is very easy for the owner to switch that to a Microsoft account after you return it.


Switch to Microsoft Account in Windows 10