[candiddevmike]

Microsoft's support for multiple accounts is atrocious. I can easily have 5+ Google accounts that I switch between, moving between MS accounts is awful. Additionally MS's free consumer offerings are not competitive with Gmail/Drive IMO.

[yellow_postit]

I'm not a fan of Google's solution either. With a device with multiple G accounts it’s always a guessing game when opening up a google doc which account it’ll choose.

[GordonS]

It's even worse if you have personal and business accounts tied to the same email address - you never know which one you're using, or which you need.

[logifail]

> It's even worse if you have personal and business accounts tied to the same email address - you never know which one you're using, or which you need

I have a friend who managed to do get into this mess, and he's still not sure how he did it.

[e-mail] is apparently linked to two separate identities at Microsoft, one is a business account, one is a "personal" account.

Every time he experiences any kind of login issue, this bites him :/

[trevorishere]

This is a legacy setup that can no longer be created. Microsoft removed the option to use a custom domain for Microsoft accounts many years ago, but hasn't forced people to change.

However, your friend can get out of this scenario by following the instructions on this site:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/change-t...

They'll end up with <whatever_they_can_find>@outlook.com for their Microsoft account. When using Org services via a browser, you'll automatically use your Org account. When using consumer services, you'll automatically use your Microsoft account (assuming you've selected stay sign-in for both).

[logifail]

> This is a legacy setup that can no longer be created

Thank goodness for that!

> However, your friend can get out of this scenario by following the instructions on this site

Thanks for the tip, will try and walk him through this next time I'm with him.

> hey'll end up with <whatever_they_can_find>@outlook.com for their Microsoft account

I doubt they actually need/want access to the Microsoft account. They don't use this work email address for any consumer services, as far as I'm aware -although how could one tell what services it could be associated with?

[trevorishere]

They can find connected apps for their consumer account on https://account.live.com/consent/manage.

[magicalhippo]

I read an explanation from some Microsoft page or rep. that it had to do with making personal purchases in the Windows Store when you're signed in using your business account. IIRC the rationale was that the personal account could persist beyond your employment, so you wouldn't lose any purchases if you switched jobs.

If I indeed recall correctly, then that doesn't really make sense. Just force people to make a different, actual personal account, and have them use that.

[logifail]

> IIRC the rationale was that the personal account could persist beyond your employment, so you wouldn't lose any purchases if you switched jobs

Except if you lose access to the work email address by switching jobs, surely you're one forgotten password away from permantently losing access to the personal account too? It's linked to your _work_ email (only)...

[magicalhippo]

Yeah... all I can recall was it never made much sense to me.

[magicalhippo]

Indeed. I've never understood this distinction. Either it's a business account, or it's a personal account. It's bad enough that people use their business mail to sign up for personal stuff, we don't need Microsoft to make it even worse.

[trevorishere]

> we don't need Microsoft to make it even worse.

Microsoft made it better by preventing the scenario from occurring beginning 3 - 5 years ago.

[nine_k]

This is a terrible idea to begin with.