Windows Phone 8.1 Tip: Change your Microsoft account without hard resetting your Windows Phone

Windows Phone 8.1 is the first version of Windows Phone that allows you to change your Microsoft account with an Alias of your current Microsoft account without a hard reset of your phone. In which you maintain your phone and current purchases intact. With Windows Phone 8 or lower you never had the possibility to change your main Microsoft account without doing a hard reset of your Windows Phone which is something not many people want to do. To do this without losing all your previous purchases you have to assign an alias email account of your current Microsoft account as your new primary account. If you create a brand new Microsoft account this won’t work.

Steps to change your main Microsoft account on your Windows Phone 8.1  (and your Windows 8.1 devices)

1. Log in to your current Outlook.com account.
2. Click on the right top of the screen on your name followed by “account settings”. You need to log in again to verify your account.
   
3. Let’s look at your current aliases or to create a new alias by clicking on the left side “Account Aliases”
   
4. Choose the alias you want to make your new primary or create a new alias first before making it your primary.
   
5. Now that you have assigned an alias as your new primary you will be asked very soon on your phone to re-enter the password with this new associated email
6. On your Windows and Xbox One devices you just need to log-out and you will notice that your new email is automatically your log-in for Windows and Xbox One as well.

Once this all works you can safely remove your old Microsoft account that is now just an alias. Ideal if you old Microsoft account was hacked and used to send out spam emails. Just make sure you change your email first as log-ins from your Banking, Facebook and other websites before deactivating and deleting the old email.

The post Windows Phone 8.1 Tip: Change your Microsoft account without hard resetting your Windows Phone appeared first on Johan van Mierlo's MobilityMinded.