Personal vs Work or School Account

Question

I have been using Office 2019 with Windows 10 for a number of years. I have for quite some time had a "Personal" account with Microsoft and (how and when I don't know) "Work or School" account.

Last week I stupidly upgraded to Windows 11 after receiving a notification from MS that support for Windows 10 was ending in a few months.

During the process of trying to "fix" my PC following the upgraded I decided that as I have never used the "Work or School" account that I would just delete it. After reading countless web posting of how easy that should be, I have yet been able to remove it.

So at present, I am stuck with this "Work or School" account.

I have noticed that when I am NOT signed in to either account, I can use Word without issue.

When I sign in to the "Work or School" account, I can use Word without issue.

However, when I sign in with my personal account. Microsoft has created some mystical organization that is preventing me from using some of the features I use most. In particular, when I am using the VBA editor to get help on a selected method or property and press F1 instead of the help information from the web appearing, I get:

Apparently "I" am my organization as I am signed in to "My" work or school account. The must be some place in the Microsoft realm where I can turn this service back on. Can anyone help with this issue?

Thank you.

Answer 1

That didn't seem to work.

I really don't know how or why Microsoft can foul up something as simple as using ones own account on one's own computer.

When I went to the link you posted, is seems that my email address is already the "primary" alias for my account. I tried adding my phone number as an alias and that resulted in the same issue.

Before today, my email address is the only thing that I have ever used to create an account at Microsoft. I created it years ago and all worked well until Windows 11. When I installed Windows 11, I had to add and additional log on method (Authenticator) to access my account. I had me reset my password.

Somehow as "Work or School" account has been added to the mix. To log into it, enter my email@address, my new password and go through the extra step to authenticate. When logged in, everything works without and "permissions" issues.

To log into my personal account, I use the "same" email address, enter the "old" password and that's it. When logged in, I can't use all the features of Word.

Now, perhaps I have somehow contributed to this mess, but the end state I would like to have is.

A. A personal account using my email address and password where all of the features of the application I have bought and paid for work.

B. I do not need a work or school account. I am not at work or school and don't intend to got back. I would like to delete the work or school account. However, when I try, it never "disconnects"

C. I am not interested in and Outlook.com email account or address.

Thank you.

Answer 2

Dear Greg Maxey (gmaxey)，

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

We understand that you are unable to use your personal account and functions after upgrading your system.

According to your description, you have Microsoft personal account information, but when you log in and use functions, it shows that your account is being managed by the organization, and some functions cannot be used.

Since you said that you can use Word normally when you do not log in or log in to a "work or school" account, but when you use your personal account directly, it does show that you are being managed by the organization. We are worried that this problem may occur because your account type is detected as an organizational account when you register or detect it, so the information of some functions may be restricted.

To check whether the system detects the correct information for Office programs and account types, you can try the following:

Add an alias to your account:

You can try to create a new Microsoft domain alias (*@outlook.de) for your Microsoft account, then use the alias to log in to Word again and use the function to see if it works normally.

Don't worry, adding an alias will only add an additional login method, your account will not be affected in any way, and you can still log in with your original email address afterwards.

You can create an alias by visiting this link https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=529489

Add or remove an email alias in Outlook.com - Microsoft Support

You can try to log in again to see if you can log in successfully. If there is any update, we also look forward to you sharing more information with us.

Best Regards, 

Zenobia.Z | Microsoft Community Support Specialist