[kijin]

Most consumers buy their PCs from big box vendors who can help with password recovery and whatnot. Microsoft might do it better, sure, but why would they want to pick up the cost of doing it themselves when they've been outsourcing it to OEMs for so long?

[bennyp101]

No, they walk into (or go online to) PC World/Currys/Amazon and buy a computer. Then they load it up and up pops Windows.

The make of the computer is irrelevant to 90% of people.

[cmiles74]

I disagree that most PC vendors are capable or good at helping consumers reset passwords of local Windows accounts. This is not a trivial process, take a look at the HP support page on this issue.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04648973

It's unlikely that people with Windows Home have a password reset disk and there's likely only the one account on the machine. That leaves them with "have a computer repair service recover your local password" or "reset your computer". In my opinion, the majority of people would be better served by a Microsoft account, where Microsoft can handle the reset through their website, rather than a password reset disk or wiping their machine in desperation.

Also note how excited HP is to get out of the business of handling this very situation.

> HP recommends using a Microsoft account for signing into Windows. Using a Microsoft account offers many benefits, including easy password recovery. If you currently have a local user account, consider switching to a Microsoft account after recovering or changing your current password.