microsoft live vs hotmail issue

BekiD · 15 Jun 2020

Hullo there.

I've looked in the forum, and I didn't see anything quite like this that I could tell, but maybe I'm searching for the wrong keywords. Anyway, here's my situation.

We recently got a new desktop computer and my husband set it up using my sister's hotmail account as the microsoft live account. Since then, her laptop wasn't allowing her to access some websites etc. So, I had turned off sync on both the new desktop and her laptop (both are running win10) thinking that was the problem. It partially fixed it, but not totally.

I had created a new email account and moved the microsoft live account over to it. Since then, she has not been able to log into her hotmail account. It tells her it doesn't exist. According to the microsoft forums, her hotmail account should not have been affected.

I did log into the live account to try to change it back to her hotmail account and it tells me I couldn't access it and that the email account is on a reserved domain. The outlook account that is associated with the live account has her hotmail emails in it. So at least I know I can retrieve them for her. However, she really needs that account to work as it is where her medical team contacts her.

I tried to use account.live.com/resetpassword.apx to recover her hotmail account, but I was told that they didn't have enough information. I filled out the form again, and got a generic email that said I would hear back from them in 24 hours if they can recover it.

So, if it can't be recovered there, is there something else I can do? I am strongly considering doing a format and reload on the desktop, but that doesn't fix the hotmail issue. And to be honest, since everything is tied to the live account, I am not sure that will fix the issue since the two computers seem to be tied even though the synch is turned off. Any thoughts as to the wisest course of action to get the two computers working without synching up?

Thanks!

Caledon Ken · 16 Jun 2020

Hi BekiD. Welcome to TenForums @BekiD

You are using the term live account and not sure that is quite correct.

When signing into W10 you can use a Microsoft account or a local account. Over the years MS has offered MSN, Live, Hotmail and Outlook.com email addresses.

Please go to the laptop and navigate to

account.microsoft.com

Hopefully it will not automatically log you in.

You want to be able to enter the email address (the one you are having difficultly with) and then enter password. If that does not allow you in click forgot password. If account was correctly set up it should provide and option to email you a reset link or a cell phone number to text a code to.

Hopefully this gains you access to the inaccessible account.

As to the new machine I've never heard of one machine restricting access on another machine.

You might consider as you said reloading the new machine. If store bought there should be a built in way to reset to factory. I would then go through the setup again, with Internet unplugged and log in with a Local account.

Basically you tell Windows you don't have the person sign in information. Once Windows is reloaded and you connect to internet Windows will again try to get you to use a MS account. If that window comes up just skip. Once you get laptop running right and access to the hotmail account you can look into switching new device to MS account.

Not sure what browser is being used or if you need to sync two devices. That can be explored as next steps.

Ken

Berton · 16 Jun 2020

To add, I have accounts with Hotmail and Outlook.com, both now go to Outlook – free personal email and calendar from Microsoft
I added an account in Outlook.com several years ago [after having been with Hotmail since '98] when they announced they would be moving Hotmail to it, took them awhile but it's done.

A further confusion exists between Outlook.com and Microsoft Office with its Outlook installable E-Mail program.

BekiD · 16 Jun 2020

Thanks for your reply Ken.

I think I have muddied the waters a bit. Let me try to be clearer as I am just an idiot with a search engine, and that makes me dangerous :)

Perhaps there are 3 issues involved and they are compounding on each other. The first is that my sister's laptop was put into sync with the desktop computer. I have turned that off on both computers, so hopefully that will no longer be an issue. However, even though I removed the live account from the laptop yesterday, it showed up again today when I turned on her computer.

The second issue is the spousal unit set up a Microsoft live account on the desktop under my sister's Hotmail account email. He insisted that we had to have one for the computers (and I don't believe that is correct as I don't have a live account associated with my machine that I am aware of) I created a new Gmail account and associated it as primary to the live account with that.

I removed my sister's Hotmail account as the primary email on the live account and then deleted it from the live account. According to what I had read, that should have only removed the Hotmail account from the live account, but not deleted it in its entirety.

What appears to have happened is that the Microsoft live account has her stored Hotmail emails in it. They do not appear in the created Gmail account. When I tried to log into her Hotmail account, it said that it couldn't recognize her Hotmail account. The Microsoft site said that they will hold an email account for 60 days before they will permanently delete it, so I've been trying recover it at account.live.com/resetpassword.apx It keeps rejecting my request, and today it said I had too many tries to log in (I'm don't type fast enough for it I guess) I am not sure if this is part of the second issue, or if this is a third issue.

Now, she no longer has access to her Hotmail, and she can only log into her Comcast email on the desktop. It won't allow her to log into Comcast on her laptop. So this may be tangled up in the email mess, or if this is a new fourth issue.

Personally, I want to F&R the whole thing and redo from scratch. However, as far as I know, Win 10 doesn’t come with a disc, it’s all download from the cloud so I am not sure how to do a reformat and reload without a disc. I need to get her hotmail account recovered and I would prefer to make sure that she can get into It before I touch anything else and make things even more of a mess than they already are.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for your reply Berton,

My sister has a few accounts. the Hotmail one in question is the one she has reserved for her medical team to use as she has MS and has some issues due to that. Otherwise, it wouldn't be an issue. She used outlook on her laptop to access the Hotmail account.

My husband created a Microsoft live account when he set up the desktop using her Hotmail account. I changed the primary email address of the Microsoft Live account to a Gmail account. Since then, the Microsoft Live account that is now a Gmail account has her past Hotmail emails in it when I go to the Microsoft Live account. I cannot log into her hotmail account as it is now not recognized when logging in. Am I making sense? Basically, they should have been two separate accounts. Is it possible to load screenshots? Would a visual make more sense? I'm not the most articulate person.

Berton · 16 Jun 2020

All is not lost with a Hotmail account, can always use any 'foreign' computer and its Internet Browser to log in, just have to remember the password and when closing do not save settings. It's Webmail just as is Outlook.com. Outlook.com is not the same as Outlook, part of Microsoft Office.

If using an installed E-Mail Client like Outlook or Thunderbird, OEClassic, etc., whatever is done in Webmail such as deletions or sent items will still be there when the client is opened.

BekiD · 16 Jun 2020

Benton,

The hotmail account is well and truly gone. When I try to log into it from my computer, her account isn't recognized, so I can't even get to the part to put in her password.

Caledon Ken · 17 Jun 2020

I think there are lots of things I don't understand

1) I had created a new email account and moved the microsoft live account over to it. Since then, she has not been able to log into her hotmail account. It tells her it doesn't exist. According to the microsoft forums, her hotmail account should not have been affected.

2)I removed my sister's Hotmail account as the primary email on the live account and then deleted it from the live account. According to what I had read, that should have only removed the Hotmail account from the live account, but not deleted it in its entirety.

Microsoft has always had emails accounts and over the years the domain has change. MSN, Live, Hotmail and finally Outlook.com.

Then Microsoft came up with the idea of using a Microsoft account to sign in to all the MS properties, much like Google and it's Signal sign on. (One id allows you into gmail, chrome, youtube, etc.)

You could sign into xbox, Windows, Skype, Onedrive etc.

If you already had a MS email account you could use that as your Microsoft log in account. If you didn't you could get one or MS allowed you to use any other email account, some used gmail or yahoo id's.

So in short there is no Microsoft "Live" account. ( I acknowledge if you are an old timer you could have an email address with the domain live.com) If you were using your hotmail address as your Microsoft Account for login and you deleted it, the account, you are deleting the email account.

Then in statement 2) above you said I removed Hotmail account as the primary email and you go on further to say you deleted the account.

In statement 1) you mentioned moving the account. No sure what this means.

You then go on to say you changed primary email address, not sure where you are doing this but if in the account on the MS servers you are changing "THE ACCOUNT"

So lets power off the desktop for now and we can rebuild later. The software is onboard or you get a new copy on the web.

First things first. Let us try to get the email work.

Could you please explain what you mean when you wrote this and where did you do this, on MS Servers?

I changed the primary email address of the Microsoft Live account to a Gmail account. Since then, the Microsoft Live account that is now a Gmail account has her past Hotmail emails in it when I go to the Microsoft Live account.

Again there is no such thing as a MS Live Account. Windows allows you to login in using your MS account which for a lot of people is there email account.

Yes some screen shots would help us understand where you are making these changes. Personally I think you have been making these changes on the mail servers thinking there are two separate accounts.

Click start and start typing Snipping, an app will come to top of list.

The snipping app lets you take snips of what is on you screen. Once a snip is create come back here and CRTL-V to paste.

You may have to go to paint app first to remove confidential data. Then re-snip and paste.

BekiD · 17 Jun 2020

Thanks for being so patient with me. I am going to try to attach some pictures because I am not the most articulate of persons and I am probably misunderstanding what I've done. I think the first thing I need to do is get my sister's Hotmail account back. Once I have that, I can (hopefully) F&R everything on both computers and go on from there.

I am going to have to make two posts for the pictures as I can only upload so many at once. So far, I have turned off sync on both computers. So that should in theory cause both machines to be separate instead of work together.

When I went to remove the microsoft account from the desktop I went to settings and changed the email to the gmail account I set up. (Figure 1)

microsoft live vs hotmail issue-figure-1.png

The Microsoft account shows up with the gmail account. So far, so good. (Figure 2)

microsoft live vs hotmail issue-microsoft-acct-fig-2.png

I go to log into her Hotmail account Figure 3

microsoft live vs hotmail issue-login-page-fig-3.png

I try to log into her homtail account and get this message (figure 4) where I am told it doesn't recognize her account.

microsoft live vs hotmail issue-error-page-fig-4.png

I was told to go to account.live.com/resetpassword.aspx to recover her account. I've not been quite able to do that yet. I figure before I touch anything else, I'd be best to wait and hear back from someone who knows more than I do because it sounds like I am just not totally getting what I did to hose things up, or on how to fix this piece part of it.

This is the main thing I need to fix before I do anything else with it as my sister needs to be able to receive emails from her medical team. If I can get this part fixed, I can back everything else up, and see about doing a format and reload on both machines to clear up the other weird things they are doing with regards to her accounts.

Once again, thank you so very much for putting up with me.

- - - Updated - - -

Part 2

Now that we have established that the Hotmail account is not allowing me to log into it, I go back to the account that shows that it is gmail, we see all of my sister's former Hotmail emails. (figure 5) Mind you, if I go to the actual Gmail account, none of those emails show up there. So, I don't know what to do at this point to clear up this piece part of the mess.

microsoft live vs hotmail issue-email-fig-5.png

Thank you once again for being so patient with me!

B

Caledon Ken · 18 Jun 2020

Well it looks like, in my opinion that you have actually alter her hotmail account and some how given it a gmail address as an alias.

I really wish MS had not allowed people to use any address as a Microsoft account. I also now see you are using the Outlook (Office) mail client. Please stop using Outlook, just the browser until we get things back on track.

While you are using a gmail address as your MS account this really has nothing to do with the Google gmail servers. In essence you are saying when I'm at Microsoft call me xxx@gmail.com. This is why when you go to google gmail.com they have no idea about the mail in the MS servers or even if you created an id.

So browser only, I don't want outlook the program (came with Office) issuing attempts to login.

Start your browser and navigate to outlook.com (Type outlook.com in address bar, no searching)

Click sign in

In the entry field enter this gmail address that you created and on next panel the password.

This is where you are seeing all your sisters old mail, correct?

STOP if I have this wrong

In upper right is either your sister picture or initials. Left click once.

Click My Account - this should take you a MS page.

Along the top click "Your info" - new page is presented.

On the right hand side should be a link "Manage how you sign in to MS account"

Here I get a little fuzzy.

I think you are going to see the gmail address as the primary alias.

Now I'm not sure if you should add your sister old Hotmail address and then remove the gmail address or just remove the gmail address and it will return to her old address. ( You also mentioned creating a new Hotmail address - which might show on this page as another alias and it would have to be removed too.) (Does have me concerned you saw some message it will delete some account in 60 days. Not sure which account this was)

I think I would start with trying to add your sister's old (official - before this hiccup) email address and if it takes remove the gmail alias.

If that doesn't work I'm not sure what will happen if you just remove gmail alias. Maybe and I do say maybe, this is something to try. I have to imagine MS would stop us if no account was assigned.

I won't be around much today but I'll be back. Please don't try to many things as MS has made it very easy to dig large holes.

mngerhold · 18 Jun 2020

BekiD said:

The hotmail account is well and truly gone. When I try to log into it from my computer, her account isn't recognized, so I can't even get to the part to put in her password.

This is clearly a complicated situation, which Ken is trying to resolve - but what do you mean by 'when I try to log in to it'? Do you mean you try to log into Windows using the hotmail email address? That won't work unless you have created (on the computer) an account with that email as an identity (maybe you did). The trouble is that the word 'account' can mean many things! But the inability to log into the Pc with that account name does not mean her hotmail email account has vanished (which would be of concern).

Have you tried logging in to https://login.live.com/ with a browser and entering the hotmail credentials? That is where you will (hopefully) find your sister's emails. Note that I have an outlook.com email address, but when I try to log in to it (at Outlook – free personal email and calendar from Microsoft) by clicking on 'sign in', the previous login.live address is what pops up - MS insist on making this complicated for us!

Anyway, assuming this is no help, back to Ken's list of questions. Good luck and atb, Martin