New user and Office 365 Family

Question

After having posted at Answers, it was suggested I try here. I'll provide a bit more context. The question is two-fold, dealing with creating new accounts, and sharing Office 365 Family across multiple machines.

Some months ago I purchased a new laptop with Win10. On first power up, the setup asked me to create an MS account, and activated Office 365 Family. So far so good.

Now, last week I purchased another, to replace my wife's old Win7 machine which is starting to signal some hardware issues. Again, first power up, the setup prompted for MS account. At this point, not wanting to have to create additional accounts if no necessary, I gave it my credentials and proceeded. Now that the initial setup is complete, I'd like to create an account for my wife, giving her her own logon profile, her own directory structure under C:\users, and sharing the Office 365 Family license. I would like to NOT have to create her own MS account, and minimize any other 'hooks' back to the 'Microsoft Mother Ship'.

When I go to 'Start -> Settings -> Family and Other Users, I am faced with my first choice: "Add a family member", or "Add someone else." If I go with "Add a family member" , the first prompt is to enter their email address, and a note that says "No Microsoft Account? Add one for a child". Hmm, my preference is to NOT create additional MS accounts. If I go with "Add someone else", the first prompt is "How will this person sign on?" and again prompts for an email or phone number. If I'm creating a completely local account, I don't see why it would need either.

At this point I'm not sure how to proceed, and don't want to commit to the wrong choice.

As a bit of personal background, I've just retired from a 40-year career in IT. In that time I've had many roles, but Windows Admin wasn't one of them. And this whole "Family" concept within windows is completely new to me.

Answer 1

Hi there,

You were almost there, for a local account you do not need a Phone number or Mial id, just follow the below steps

Select Start > Settings > Accounts and then select Family & other users. (In some versions of Windows you'll see Other users.)

Select Add someone else to this PC.

Select I don't have this person's sign-in information, and on the next page, select Add a user without a Microsoft account.

Enter a user name, password, or password hint—or choose security questions—and then select Next.

Hope this answers all your queries, if not please do repost back.
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