Microsoft Account hell

I need to make a thread for this, to better revel in the nightmare that is the way Microsoft handles (or mishandles) user accounts.

My tale of woe started back when my Hotmail account got wiped out due to inactivity. Why do they do this? I guess to insure that you'll never try to use Hotmail ever again. An MS rep decided to help out by giving me a new ID I could use to sign in to Live/Net/MS Accounts or whatever they're calling it from one moment to the next. The new ID used this format:

name@xbox360.com

I chose a password and it worked. Hooray. One problem: name@xbox360.com is not an actual e-mail address and that means that the ID/account can never be verified, because the verification mail gets sent to the e-mail address your account uses. Which, as I mentioned, doesn't actually exist.

I turn to the web to find an answer and someone recently posted with my exact issue. Here is the post and the MS forum moderator response. Click the spoiler to see the text from the link.

The link Abdon 'accopunt' M provides at the end of her instructions leads to this:

I have a spoiler of my own but I'm not using tags. I am, however, using all caps:

NONE OF THIS WORKS.

I want to do one thing and one thing only:

1. Change my Microsoft Account name from name@xbox360.com to name@gmail.com (my actual, working e-mail address).

None of the steps above allow you to do this because you always come back to needing to verify your existing e-mail address to proceed. It is a perfect circle of 'nothing will ever change lol!'

If I login in to my account settings and click 'Update email address' I get taken to a screen where I can enter a new one, like it's going to work. But anything I enter gives the same result: [specified address] isn't available.

What holy sacrifice needs to be made in order to attach a real, functioning e-mail address to my Microsoft Account? I'd like to know.

Thank you.

I crave the answer to this exact same question. The last time I tried to sort it out, this was the extent of the help that I got, from the website (literally):




THANKS! I got basically the same response from tech support when I called them. They were completely unable to fix anything. THANKS!

I have this fun thing where I try and login to Microsoft and get stuck in an infinite redirect loop.

I'd almost be willing to close the existing account but I'm afraid if I did that it would lock me out of using previous name/mail so instead of being Creole Ned I'd be forced to use something new but similar, like Crayola Nerd.

Ben and ned, PM me the accounts in question, plus contact email addresses and I'll see what I can do. My mojo has diminished since I left support to green pastures, but I still know most of the people that run support for Microsoft Account.

xpav, that's almost always due to weird browser settings (I've seen it in IE when you have, for instance, hotmail.com in trusted sites but not live.com). I'd try setting up a brand new dummy account and seeing if it does the same thing. If it does, try your account on another, clean machine and see if it still reproduces. If you magically having it only on your account on any machine, again PM me with some info.

Edit: oh and to "Why does this happen" - this is one of those edge case scenarios that Microsoft Accounts "answer customers via quick text matched to your problem by people in India and or the Philliphines" approach fails majestically at.

Every MS site HATES web browsers that aren't Internet Explorer. If you want to actually use something like xbox.com the only way to do it is to use IE.

PM sent. Thanks, Guido -- the help is appreciated, no matter the result.

And I still think Ben's avatar on the Xbox site is perfect given what happened.

I'm on a Mac. Haha!

Oddly, Firefox works.

I recently transfered my xbox live account to use a different Live/windows account.

1. My old xbox live account was like this:
name@school.edu

2. I went to outlook.com and made a new one, thusly
newname@outlook.com

3. I signed into my old xbox live account on the xbox (under Settings > account) and there's a place to change your current profile settings with the new account.

4. It asked me for my password on the old acount, and then had me sign in on the new account.

That's all it did. I just switched the account over to using the new email address. There wasn't any questions or verifying new emails. It would do exactly what you want - only using an outlook.com account instead of a gmail one. But that's easy to get around, just have outlook account forward everything to gmail so you don't miss a message and proceed with your business.

Hope that helps!

Guido, any word yet on whether my account has at least been moved to purgatory?

I summon thee, Guido Jones to see if there has been any progress. I am nearly ready to go off on my own magical mystery tour of new account creation and that will almost certainly end in tears for all involved.

Still working on it :)

Good, good!

Thanks again!

Ben Sones - So, one avenue you can try is to switch out the Microsoft Account associated with your Gamertag - http://support.xbox.com/en-US/billi...soft-account#23de514eaf4d41769d116e05df8d7d19

This works only if A. you've got a 360 with your Gamertag currently on it B. you're okay with just tossing out whatever was associated with your original Microsoft Account that is not your Gamertag (ie Skydrive stuff would still be associated with your original Live ID).

Unfortunately that option won't work for Ned, so the quest continues.

Guido, I'm not sure I'm understanding. It sounds like you are saying that I have two Microsoft accounts, but I don't. I have one, which I made when I first got my Xbox, and which is now also used by Windows 8. And is associated with GFWL. So I'm not entirely sure what you are recommending. I mean, I do have a 360 with my Gamertag on it. That is what my Microsoft account is associated with. To my knowledge, it's never been any other way.

Your link goes here, BTW:

Whoops :) http://support.xbox.com/en-US/billi...soft-account#61994cfe26bc496590621a0244458876 specifically the section on "Can I switch my gamertag to a different Microsoft account?"

And no, I was not suggesting you have two accounts. If you have an account you can't rename, one option is to create a new Microsoft Account with the desired email address and switching your gamertag to that new account, abandoning the original un-renamable Microsoft Account. That won't work as you've got more than just your Gamertag associated to your Microsoft Account (Windows 8 related stuff).

Sigh. It's just weird that an account system that forces you to use your email address as an account name does not make it easier (or, in my case, possible) to change the account name. If it weren't tied to an email address, it wouldn't be a big deal. If it were tied to an email but was easy to change when you get a new email address, it wouldn't be a big deal. As it stands, it's kind of a big deal.

I offered to help you know, but you never sent me a PM :p

He sent it to the old account you don't have the login info for anymore.

Sorry, Guido, I missed the post in which you offered--I see it now. I'm not sure what you'll be able to do; as I said, I've contacted support a couple of times, and they weren't able to help. I've also managed to get it linked to a live.com account, and while I'd like to have it linked to an email account that I actually use, at least it's now linked to an email account that exists. I'll send you a PM on the off-chance that you might be able to help, though.

Thanks to Guido's assistance I am now in Microsoft Account Neutral Zone. I refuse to call it Heaven due to past history but my MS Account is now tied to my gmail address and the whole @xbox360.com thing has been banished forever or hopefully for at least a few thousand years.

Thanks again, Guido!

People always underestimate Guido's superpowers, at first. Think of him as the Bill Brassky of Microsoft.

Hah. I could help Ned, but sadly I think Ben is screwed. Sorry Ben :(

There should be a warning that goes with the dialog that offers to change your account name to a .Live email that says "Warning: if you do this, you will never, ever be able to change it to anything else." But thanks for looking into it.

You can change it to something else. Just not anything where your mail isn't hosted on the Hotmail backend. Yes, this doesn't help you. Again, sorry.

Attention Random people of the internet: I cannot help you with your Xbox Live account problems. I offered help here on specific technical scenario to people I've known and talked to since 2003. If you're having a problem with Xbox Live, please contact Xbox support at http://support.xbox.com

Not your fault! And I definitely appreciate your help.