I've been having trouble for a few weeks now in signing in to my main Microsoft user account.
This is causing all kinds of problems when using my computer.
1) I can no longer send/receive email on this account via either Thunderbird, my email client, or via the Hotmail website. When I try to sign in to the website, I get a nearly empty page that says:
===========================================================
Microsoft Account
[h=1]We can't show you that page[/h] Our server is having a problem. We're working to fix it as soon as we can, so try again in a few minutes.
===========================================================
It's been like that for weeks now so clearly it is NOT a short-term server problem.
2) When I try to play various Xbox games on my computer - I'm running Windows 8.1 on my laptop - it asks me to verify myself through the account but I'm unable to sign in to complete the verification.
3) When I try to install a new program from the Store, it wants me to sign in and I can't, making it impossible to install programs.
I suspect the heart of the the problem is that the account was originally issued to me via my old ISP. When I moved house at the end of August, I wasn't sure what would happen to the email account and the ISP's tech support contradicted itself when I tried to ask. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the account kept working fine until a few weeks ago; I had originally expected to lose access to it about 30 days after I cancelled my service. I thought perhaps the fact that it was also a Microsoft account was somehow keeping it alive.
I've long since moved on to another ISP but I contacted the old ISP about this issue and they were, as usual, vague and self-contradictory.
If the email account is dead, I can live with that but I'd like to be sure that there isn't something I can do to reactivate it before I give up on it.
Also, I would really like to know what to do on my laptop if I want to keep the user account associated with that email address. I've got a bad feeling that you're going to tell me to write off that user account and set up a new one based on some other Microsoft account but maybe I'm just being unduly pessimistic. I have this account configured the way I want it on my laptop with all the apps I currently need, including games with decent accumulations of scores, like gold medals in various of the XBox games. If I must abandon this user account, is there some fairly painless way to copy all the various apps, settings, scores, bookmarks, etc. over to a new account or am I going to have to create new IDs for the various games and begin whole new IDs and scoring histories?
Ultimately, I HAVE to be able to install new programs (or reinstall old ones when they start misbehaving). Is there any way to be accomplish that with the current problematic email address/user account?
This is causing all kinds of problems when using my computer.
1) I can no longer send/receive email on this account via either Thunderbird, my email client, or via the Hotmail website. When I try to sign in to the website, I get a nearly empty page that says:
===========================================================
Microsoft Account
[h=1]We can't show you that page[/h] Our server is having a problem. We're working to fix it as soon as we can, so try again in a few minutes.
===========================================================
It's been like that for weeks now so clearly it is NOT a short-term server problem.
2) When I try to play various Xbox games on my computer - I'm running Windows 8.1 on my laptop - it asks me to verify myself through the account but I'm unable to sign in to complete the verification.
3) When I try to install a new program from the Store, it wants me to sign in and I can't, making it impossible to install programs.
I suspect the heart of the the problem is that the account was originally issued to me via my old ISP. When I moved house at the end of August, I wasn't sure what would happen to the email account and the ISP's tech support contradicted itself when I tried to ask. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the account kept working fine until a few weeks ago; I had originally expected to lose access to it about 30 days after I cancelled my service. I thought perhaps the fact that it was also a Microsoft account was somehow keeping it alive.
I've long since moved on to another ISP but I contacted the old ISP about this issue and they were, as usual, vague and self-contradictory.
If the email account is dead, I can live with that but I'd like to be sure that there isn't something I can do to reactivate it before I give up on it.
Also, I would really like to know what to do on my laptop if I want to keep the user account associated with that email address. I've got a bad feeling that you're going to tell me to write off that user account and set up a new one based on some other Microsoft account but maybe I'm just being unduly pessimistic. I have this account configured the way I want it on my laptop with all the apps I currently need, including games with decent accumulations of scores, like gold medals in various of the XBox games. If I must abandon this user account, is there some fairly painless way to copy all the various apps, settings, scores, bookmarks, etc. over to a new account or am I going to have to create new IDs for the various games and begin whole new IDs and scoring histories?
Ultimately, I HAVE to be able to install new programs (or reinstall old ones when they start misbehaving). Is there any way to be accomplish that with the current problematic email address/user account?
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1
- Computer type
- Laptop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- ASUS K55N
- CPU
- AMD A8-4500 APU with Radeon HD Graphics 1.90 GHz
- Motherboard
- not sure
- Memory
- 8.00 GB installed, 7.46 GB usuable
- Graphics Card(s)
- Radeon
- Sound Card
- not sure
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Built-in laptop screen
- Screen Resolution
- 1366x768
- Hard Drives
- one 750 GB
- PSU
- Not sure
- Case
- Not sure
- Cooling
- Not sure
- Keyboard
- Built in to laptop
- Mouse
- None; I use the touchpad
- Internet Speed
- 6 Mbps down, 0.25 Mbps up
- Browser
- current versions of Firefox, Chrome and IE
- Antivirus
- Avast Free
- Other Info
- I *think* many of the questions to which I've answered "not sure" are irrelevant because it is a laptop but if you need to know specifically what model of cooling fans or keyboard or whatever where built in to the laptop, I can try to find that out if you tell me where to look. I don't see this information in the Windows/System display but maybe it is elsewhere. I'm not sure what a "PSU" is: Powe