[tonylemesmer]

I seem to remember having a problem with a new Win8 computer and trying to use Skype (I hate Skype but lots of customers of mine use it). It insisted I use a Microsoft live account , which I don't have, to install it. Eventually I somehow managed to get an old version of Skype which stopped asking me.

[daemin]

There's a difference between Skype and Skype for Desktop, the second version is what you should install, and is the classic Skype. The first one is a Metro app.

[tdkl]

Probably new Skype vs the "classic" Win32 one.

Pushing the MS Account for installing software is plain bad and it definitely won't help with user adoption like a non mandatory account would.