Syncing two Microsoft Accounts

Anonymous

I recently purchased a Windows Tablet from Dell and set up a Microsoft account for it. A few days later I upgraded my PC to Windows 8 but set it up under a different Microsoft account. The Skydrive account on the PC has several Word documents, Excel workbooks and Access databases that I wish to access and update from the tablet. I can open the files but they are not up to date. How do I sync them? I have tried examples/instructions from several sources but nothing seems to work. The Office Community Forum tells me that I need to have both computers on the same Microsoft account. How do I go about making the change? Any help (as detailed as possible) would be appreciated.

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Anonymous

Hi Joe,

Which Microsoft account would you like to keep? Is it the account that you have on the PC and with which you have several Word documents, Excel workbooks and Access databases on SkyDrive?

If you would like to keep the Microsoft Account that you have on your PC, then you may add the same account to your Tablet and then delete the existing account from it. You may follow these steps for the same.

Adding a new user account in Windows 8 & copying old files to newly created User Profile

Step 1: Adding the Microsoft Account in Windows 8.

To do this, you may refer to the article “Create a user account” and follow the instructions given in it from this link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-user-account#create-user-account=windows-8

After adding the Microsoft Account of your PC, you may set administrative privilege for the new account in your Tablet. Follow these steps for the same.

Step 2:Change your Account Type from Standard to Administrator:

a) Login to the computer using an administrator account.

b) Press “Windows Logo” + “W” keys on the keyboard to open the “Settings” search bar.

c) Type “User Accounts” in the search box and click on “User Accounts” icon.

d) From the “User Accounts” window, click on “Manage another account”.

e) Click on the new user account which you have just created and then click on “Change the account type”.

f) You can change the account type from “Standard” to “Administrator” from there.

g) Click on “Change Account Type” button.

Note: You may either keep the old account in the Tablet or else you may delete it. To delete the old account, you may proceed with the next steps to copy all the files from the old account to the new account and then delete the old one. Follow the next step to do this.

Step 3: Copying old files to newly created User Profile

a) Press “Windows Logo” + “X” keys on the keyboard and select “Windows Explorer” from the menu.

b) Click on “View” tab and click on “Options” at the top right corner.

c) Click the “View” tab, and then select “Show hidden files, folders, and drives”.

d) Uncheck the box which states “Hide protected operating system files”.

e) Click “Yes” to confirm, and then click on “OK”.

f) Now, locate “C:\Users\Old_Username” folder, where C is the drive that Windows is installed on, and “Old_Username” is the name of the old user profile you want to copy files from.

g) Select all of the files and folders in this folder, except the following files:

• Ntuser.dat

• Ntuser.dat.log

• Ntuser.ini

h) Right click and Select “Copy”.

i) Locate the “C:\Users\New_Username” folder, where C is the drive that Windows is installed on, and “New_Username” is the name of the new user profile you have created.

j) Right click inside the folder and select “Paste”.

k) Restart your PC and check if you are able to log into the default profile.

Now, you may delete the old user account from your computer.

Step 4: Remove the old User Account from the Computer

a) Press “Windows Logo” + “W” keys on the keyboard to display the “Settings” search bar.

b) Type “Remove User Accounts” and press the “Enter” key on the keyboard.

c) In the “Manage Accounts” window, select the old account and then click on “Delete the account” link on the left pane of the window.

d) Click on “Delete Files” and then click on “Delete Account” to delete the whole account from the computer.

Hope this resolves the issue. Please do get back to us, if you have any further queries on this.

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Anonymous

2013-11-07T22:28:57+00:00

Dear Mr. Rajesh Govind,

It’s almost standard situation this day after introduction of the official version of Windows 8.1.

First, I did the “clean installation” of Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Centre on the new PC of my wife. It’s working just excellent. After that, I decided to upgrade my computer from Windows 8.0 Pro with Media Centre. Since that moment, my life turned into nightmare. Actually, my PC works quite well. However, the local structure in the Users folder has been changed in the wrong way. Instead of folder with my user name, I can see the folder with the name “Music” that also has two identical folders with the name “Music” and with the same set of the internal folders (like in a mirror). For this reason the Indexing is not working. I cannot start Windows search process (Error 2). I’ve tried to create a new local accounts (and even Microsoft accounts) while using a different ways, including your instructions. But, I cannot see a folder with the new user name in the Users folder. Consequently, I cannot move my files to the normal file structure in order to restore one of the most important function – Windows search. At the end, I’ve tried to reinstall Windows completely using original Windows 8 DVD. However, it was also unsuccessful. It just said that this task cannot be completed and did a roll back.

Usually, I can find solution without external assistance but not this time. I work with hundreds different documents. Without internal search my computer almost useless.

Shame on me, but my Acronis True Image archive is two month old. Please help me to solve this problem or please advise how to roll back to the previous version of Windows.

Sincerely,

Alexey Novgorodov.
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Anonymous

2013-08-03T03:08:40+00:00

Hi Joe,

Thank you for getting back to us with the result. I really apologize for the delay in my response to this thread. Regarding the “further question” that you had, we can actually change the display name of both the Microsoft Account and the Local Account. But, from the computer, it can be done only for the Local Account. For the Microsoft Account you will have to change it online from “www.live.com”. You need to login to your account using your Microsoft Account email address and then click on the account display name/image on the top-right corner of the account page and then click on “Account Settings”.

This will take you to the “Account Summary” page from where you can edit the display name by clicking on the link: “Edit display name”.

Once after you edit the account display name, you need to synchronize the change in the computer. It should synchronize automatically by its own when you restart the computer and then try to login to your account in it. If it does not synchronize automatically, then you may have to remove the account and then add it again to the computer and check if the display name is changed or not.

To remove the Microsoft Account from your computer, please follow these steps:

a)       Press “Windows Logo” + “X” keys on the keyboard and select “Control Panel” from that list.

b)       In the “Control Panel” window, click on the option “View by” on the top right corner of the window and select “Large icons” from the drop down menu.

c)       Now, click on “User Accounts” icon

d)       On the “User Accounts” window, click on the link “Manage another account” and click on the account that you would like to remove from the computer and select “Delete the account”.

e)       You may select either of the option “Delete files” or “Keep files” from the next screen.

f)        Click on “Delete Account”.

After deleting the account from the computer, you may add the same account again and check if that changes the display name of the account. To add the account, you may refer to the article: “Create a user account” from this link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-user-account#create-user-account=windows-8

Hope this information is helpful. Please do get back to us with the result.
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Anonymous

2013-07-30T19:17:32+00:00

Never mind about the "further question." I finally found the answer in my Windows 8 All-in-One for Dummies book. You can't change the user name unless it's a Local account.

My questions have been answered.
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Anonymous

2013-07-28T21:37:48+00:00

Thanks for your response. It was just what I needed. I established the new account and changed it to an Administrator type account then changed the old account to a Standard type account. I did not copy the files from the old account to the new account as I plan to keep the old account.

A further question:

I also tried to change the name of the old account under C:\Users but could not find a way to do it. Is it possible to do this?
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Syncing two Microsoft Accounts

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