replacing invalid security alternative email without waiting the "30-day waiting period"

Question

Hi we need help on the following issue:

1. we have received a sudden message (blue screen) that requests to insert the bitlocker encryption recovery key; we assume (reading a close topic in the community forum) that this happened due an automatic dectation of risk of unathorized access; in fact, we never enabled the bitlocker functionality on the PC. The message declares that we can recover the key accessing the account profile.
2. During the access to the profile, we received a second blocking message that declares that to proceed is necessary to have a security code, accessible thru the secondary/alternative security email specified during the account registration. Unfortunately we then realized to have set at that moment an invalid security alternative email (i.e. an email that does not exist due the wrong extension).
3. We have then tried to replace the invalid security alternative email with the correct one, and we have received the message that to take effect such change we need to wait the "30-day waiting period", that is a message as follow

                  You can't access this site at the moment
   

This site requires a security code to sign in. When your security info is updated on 14/08/2024 (Aug-14, 2024), you will be able to access this site.

                   You can still access sites such as Outlook and Skype that don't require a security code.

The point - unfortunately - is that we cannot access the computer, at all, not only some apps, and we use such computer for urgent matters that cannot wait for a month.

Is anybody able to give instruction to overcome/bypass such "30-day waiting period" thru any kind of procedure that we can follow to demonstrate that we are the authorized owner of such computer and account?

thanks a lot in advance for your help.

Best regards

Luca

P.S: I'm writing from a different computer and different account to be sure to access to the replies and support advices.

Answer 1

Hi Emily,

thanks a lot once more for your valuable support and advices.

Crossing fingers.

best regards

Luca

Answer 2

While I completely understand your point, it is unfortunately not possible. You can use the Get Help app to reach out to chat agent, they simply don't have the tool, or access to help anyone bypass this. Microsoft account issue is completely automated. To avoid this from happening again in the future, make sure you add more than one contact information. I've seen this way too often here in the forum, and I hate sharing this type of information with user.

Here is the clean install instruction:

To perform a clean installation of Windows 10 using the Windows Media Creation Tool. You do need to get access to another computer so you can download the Windows installation files into a flash drive, then use the flash drive to help your computer. Hopefully you have a spare computer, or you can have friend or family help you.

The following steps should be done on a working Windows computer:

Download the Windows Media Creation Tool from Microsoft's official website. https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/win...

Run the tool and select "Create installation media for another PC."

Choose your language, edition, and architecture (32 or 64-bit) and select "Next."

Choose "USB flash drive" as the media to use for the installation and select "Next."

Connect a USB flash drive with at least 8 GB of free space to your computer.

Select the USB flash drive you want to use, and then select "Next."

The tool will then download the required files and create the installation media.

=====================================================

Now these steps will  be done on your problematic computer:

Go to the computer's BIOS boot menu to have it boot from the USB drive.

Follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows 10, making sure to choose "Custom install" and select the option to delete all existing partitions.

Once the installation is complete, you'll have a clean installation of Windows 10 on your computer.

==============

When you set up the computer after the installation, choose that it is set up for work, and it is for domain join. That way it allows you to create a local user. You can link your Microsoft account over once the wait is over.

Answer 3

Hi Emily

First of all thanks a lot for the quick reply, regardless I still hope in my deep heart that there is a way anyway.

I fully understand that the goal is to protect users from unauthorized access, and that is a good security practise to avoid hackers, but on the other hand

a) the main email is still a valid one;

b) the secondary email is clearly an invalid email, by mistype error (i.e it is an email that ends "@yahoo.iy" instead of "@yahoo.it") that - if you don't mind - I would say was wrongly accepted by the system that should validated at creation time for such an important goal...

plus, generally speaking, there are quite other different ways to identify a person with authenticator app or MFA/two-level authentication mechanism, etc. and what happened was an automatic undesidered effect that someone has decided to implement without considering such "use case".

Said that, I really appreciate if you can send over me the "clean install instruction" just in case at the end (i.e. in the next one or two days) we are forced to lose all the data, because for sure we cannot survive for a month without a computer bought few months ago.

Best regards

Luca

Answer 4

Hello Luca,

As much as I would like to give you what you want to hear, that's simply impossible.

This 30-day waiting policy is intended to protect users whose contact information has been changed by someone else so that they have enough time to reverse the change. This is a security policy that no one can bypass unfortunately. It is all done via automation, so that means official support will not have authority to help either.

I am sorry. I know it is not what you want to hear, but this is the most honest answer I can provide you.

If you don't care about the data on the computer, you can do a clean install to reinstall Windows, and start it up with a local user so you can access the computer, and then you can link it to your Microsoft once the wait time is over. If this is a route you are ok with, I am happy to share the clean install instruction.