Don’t configure Windows 10 with your Microsoft account unless you want a five letter name

A bit abrupt a headline, no? Well, it cost me a couple of hours by doing so.

The scenario is this: you’ve just bought/acquired/factory reset a laptop with Windows 10 installed. The first thing you have to do then is configure it: you know, define the language to be used, the timezone, connect to the WiFi, set up an account on the machine, and so on. It’s this latter part that’s the problem. Windows would love you to use your Microsoft account to do so. It gives you a lot of benefits, such as sharing configurations among your PCs and the like.

The problem is – and I know because I was bitten – Windows uses the first five characters of your Microsoft account email address as the username when naming the folder under \Users. Maybe that’s fine by you, but for me with an email address that starts with julian, it created a (well-protected, cannot be renamed, carved in carbonite) folder called \Users\julia. Well, thanks for nothing, Windows.

Sod that.

So I factory reset the install (“yes, Windows, delete all user files, FFS”) and after an hour or so, I was back at the same point. I ignored the exhortation to login with my Microsoft account, created a local one called Julian, and then once the configuration was complete, I registered my Microsoft account on the Settings / Accounts page. Lo and behold: I can use my Microsoft account and my Users folder is Julian.

What a stupid waste of time though. I have no idea why someone at Microsoft thought this was a good idea in the first place.

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2 Responses

#1 richard morris said...

11-Mar-16 5:36 AM

Yep. That bit me too. "richa" is inelegant not to mention wordy when RAM will suffice

#2 Mike said...

19-Apr-16 10:12 PM

I'm lucky my name is Mike

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