
Microsoft: You need to fix your Skype and Microsoft account issues, this is insane - kolemcrae
https://kolemcrae.com/microsoft-you-seriously-need-to-fix-your-skype-and-microsoft-account-issues-this-is-insane-6fd51e104caa
======
badthingfactory
It looks like [email] is used with more than one account. Which account do you
want to use?

\- Work or school account

\- Personal account

I get this prompt every time I try to log into Azure with my work email. If I
choose the work account (the most intuitive option) my azure subscription list
is empty. I have to log out and select the other option.

Why is there a difference and why isn't this transparent? I am authenticated,
you know who I am, give me access to the things I'm authorized for. I don't
know what kind of weird backend situation MS has, but asking me to understand
it is terrible UX.

~~~
gnud
As I understand it, the work account is actually tied to your company's office
365 subscription or something like that.

The private account is the one created by you.

If anyone knows the exact difference, please explain! Would be greatly
appreciated.

~~~
alexvy86
As you said. the Work/School Account is one provided by your employer
(normally), and usually comes from Active Directory (or AzureAD).

The Personal accounts (also called Microsoft accounts/IDs or Live IDs) are the
ones you as an individual create directly with Microsoft. The prime example
would be people who've had a Hotmail account for ages, and that eventually
became a Microsoft account.

The confusion comes because since a couple years ago, you can create Microsoft
accounts with any e-mail that you own, be it personal, from work, hosted in
gmail, hosted by your employer, hosted by yourself... You name it. So it is
possible to create a Microsoft account with your work e-mail, even if your
work e-mail also has a Work/School Account tied to it. All the notifications
for that Microsoft account will go there, but they are _not_ for your
"Work/School Account" (also referred to as Organizational account), they are
for your personal one.

Yes, it is a mess. After a while I got used to it and now I'm comfortable
navigating all my identities, but it can be very annoying when you first
encounter it.

~~~
ska
It's not just annoying, this can cause authentication to be broken in subtle
ways.

~~~
spydum
Indeed - heaven forbid you try to sign into Azure Storage Explorer with both!
It invalidates the other (workaround: use a SAS)

------
ArmandGrillet
Microsoft truly sucks with account management. Here is what happened to me
with Microsoft Office last week:

\- My Office University account expires.

\- My father invites me to be part of his Office 365 Family subscription (it
includes 5 accounts).

\- I click on the "Get the invite" button on the email I have received and...
"You already have an active account".

There was no way from the website to cancel my expired University account, the
only available option was to subscribe to my own Office 365 Personal account
(€10/month).

I have contacted Microsoft and it took 90 minutes of chat, including a one
hour session where a Microsoft support guy took control of my computer (it was
totally useless, the error has been solved by a modification in the Microsoft
account database), to fix the issue. As titled here: this is insane.

~~~
sashk
I had similiar problem. I called them, got to the real person, who fixed issue
within 2 minutes. Total call time was about 5 minutes. That included time, I
was searching for invite and so on.

~~~
reitanqild
So basically you can be lucky - or not.

IIRC my boss wasted a few hours on the phone with two MS employees - spread
over a week or two because their accounting and customer service teams
couldn't speak together it seems.

I however was lucky, some tool I had bought was missing from my Windows Store
account, after contacting them they contacted me back and I had it fixed
within 20 minutes or something.

------
__jal
Shit like this is why I don't use anything from them. There are probably 15 or
so different accounts for me in their DBs, which I will never even attempt to
use again. Life is too short to put up with managing other people's CRM for
them.

Apple is actually getting close to this bad, too, and in some ways, worse.

I gave my mother my old iPhone over a year ago. It was wiped, and we set it up
with the 'family' whatsit. For reasons I won't go in to, at some point, I
ended up giving her my Apple ID password to fix a problem when I couldn't do
it.

Ever since then, something has periodically decided to sync a random
assortment of things. It isn't consistent, temporally or in terms of what it
syncs. (I'm very anti-cloud-service; I don't use online backup, sync or cloud
docs or any other sync services from Apple. I think my other uses the backup,
but nothing else, because the phone is her only Apple device.)

A few months ago, her contacts ended up splattered all over mine. I deleted
them, it happened again a few days later, this time just a random assortment
of them.

Yesterday, my call logs ended up on her phone.

Short of asking her to wipe the phone again, I don't know how to make this
crap stop, but I'm sick of it. Seriously considering going back to a feature
phone; everyone making modern phones appear to (a) make it impossible to have
a self-contained phone without your personal life smeared across multiple
companies' servers, and (b) be too incompetent to actually smear my personal
life across their servers without fucking it up.

~~~
Frondo
"For reasons I won't go in to, at some point, I ended up giving her my Apple
ID password to fix a problem when I couldn't do it."

I won't ask about the reasons, but it seems like everything in your email is a
consequence of you setting up someone else's phone to use your account
information.

Sure, going to a feature phone would solve that, but so would not actually
sharing your account with someone else. What else did you expect?

In other words, how could Apple differentiate between "it's my account but not
my phone" and "it's my account and it is my phone"?

~~~
__jal
> In other words, how could Apple differentiate between "it's my account but
> not my phone" and "it's my account and it is my phone"?

Because the phone in question used that Apple id precisely once, and is now
configured with hers?

There's obviously some foreign key floating around keeping the association,
even though it should not be there.

And that's ignoring the question of why and how, when syncing, backup, etc is
turned off, my phone logs are even being sent to Apple at all, let alone
leaked through to another phone? Same question with contacts - if I am not
syncing or backing up, why does Apple grab my contacts?

> What else did you expect?

I expect, when logging in to a device with a given account, to only have
access to things associated with that account.

I also expect, when configuring something to not share data, that it not share
data.

Do you really have different expectations?

~~~
H4CK3RM4N
It's configured with an account at setup. You need to reset the phone before
logging in with another account.

~~~
__jal
1) That is a false statement. [1]

2) Even if that were true, that is not what happened in this case.

3) Even if that were true, it still does not explain the weird random data
leakage.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203983](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT203983)

~~~
H4CK3RM4N
But did you reset the phone before handing it over?

------
teekert
Try using Skype for business... Your chat history is gone when you switch to
another app and is not even saved on a PC. It's always the question if a chat
ends up on your laptop of mobile. You frequently miss chats or have a "you
missed a chat" email, even though you were logged in. It is an insanely poor
product. I guess it's not where their focus is. It could easily be a Slack
alternative except that it is so bad.

~~~
emptythought
I have such a passionate hate for S4B. This also happens to me, and the
logging options mentioned below being enabled don't make a reliable
difference: the logs don't always save!

Additionally, group chats often split in to two windows where the conversation
suddenly continues in a second thread even when no one joined/left... and then
you try and reply and it jumps to another conversation on its own.

People in my office have recorded this because it's so obtuse and
unbelievable.

~~~
gargravarr
In addition to the awful client application, the logging issue is really
frikkin' annoying. Something simple like 'show log history for <contact>'
doesn't work.

I used to use Pidgin with the SIPE plugin, which worked well enough, and most
importantly, logged in plain HTML with a fully working search mechanism, and
if it came to it, I could just grep the folder.

Unfortunately my company recently moved to cloud-hosted S4B, and that
completely broke Pidgin, so I've been forced onto the official client.

Someone at Microsoft really needs to learn the meaning of 'improvement'.

------
jvagner
Yes.. I have a similar tale of woe.

I'd like to change the username of my basic Skype account. Alas, it has the
company name I worked for at the time. I also have some credits in that
account. I'd either like my credits back, or I'd like to change my Skype
username. Neither are possible.

I'd also like Microsoft to stop asking me if I'm using a business account, or
a personal account, when I enter my work email address into every Microsoft
service we use every day.

That'd be nifty, too.

------
zamalek
By ways of some bad choices I wound up with 3 Microsoft accounts. I never knew
which services were on each.

In addition to those 3 accounts, I had 2 Office accounts (one for work, one
personal). Notwithstanding that the O365 sign in _really_ can't handle two
accounts on the same browser (by ways of automatic redirects) - I didn't know
if services were on O365 or Live. MSDN and VSTS do not support O365 login, so
I had to tell my Live account to claim my MSDN keys. It's nuts.

I eventually just forget about accounts. I stopped using O365 for personal
email. Don't use O365 for _anything_ personal, you will pay hell for it (for
more reasons than merely sign in).

------
iamthepieman
I love that I can't sign up for Azure services because i need a "real" phone
number and no, VOIP numbers like google voice, Microsoft's own Skype or even
my actually land line (which is through my ISP and apparently classified as
VOIP) won't work.

I don't have a mobile phone so that's fine, I can get texts on Google Hangouts
or Skype but their account software refuses to send the verification texts to
those numbers.

Fortunately there's an option to have them call you but they refuse to send
call my home phone system that is registered with my name and that is a valid
e911 number associated with an e911 address. A call with a Microsoft support
person confirmed that nope, I can not sign up for Azure.

~~~
j_s
This may be enough (receive SMS without a phone) if you're desperate for Azure
or other account:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13631724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13631724)

~~~
iamthepieman
that's the problem, every site I tried failed their "is this a real phone"
check including their own service and the phone that nearly any normal person,
technical or otherwise would consider a "land line"

~~~
j_s
If that's true for this specific site I'm sure the proprietor would appreciate
a heads-up!

------
jordache
My Skype account was temporarily hacked at one point, to the extend that it
got disabled it. I still have access to the email associated with my Skype
account. I've talked to MS support on this already but for whatever reason,
they can't validate my identity to the extend that I can reset the password on
that skype ID. Their only solution was for me to create a new Skype account.
What other cloud service does not allow reset of account via e-mail
validation!?

What a cluster MSFT

EDIT: And guess what, I have not used Skype since. Trying to recreate my
contacts and the whole process of having family accept my new account was a
much larger barrier than just instructing my family to use another video chat
service. FU MSFT.

------
mnm1
Skype accounts are fucked. Try signing in on Skype for Linux with two
different accounts. If you're lucky, you'll experience the contact shuffle
where some contacts are moved from one account to another and others randomly
deleted from both accounts. I mostly stopped using Skype after that one.

~~~
snailmailman
On my personal laptop, Skype forced me to update to the "new" skype version
that's styled like the windows 10 one. I could no longer log into the old one.
This new one is objectively worse.

\+ chat history seems to work

\+ dark mode

\- no cross platform video calling (except to web)

\- way less settings (like notification configuration stuff, all sorts of
settings)

The only thing I really use skype for is skyping to family members. Now I
can't do that, because cross platform video doesn't work. The old skype worked
and had more features and settings! Why force me to switch when the new
version isn't feature-complete!

------
_alexander
Here is a fun one. If you use the wrong email address for a password reset,
Skype will create a skype user name and account linked to your email address.
You will not be able to delete the Skype account. Yeah, fuck you Microsoft.

~~~
ralphie02
that's a pretty shitty bug on their end. Now you've fucked two accounts,
brilliant

------
viggity
Microsoft's accounts are just managed horribly in general. I've got two
microsoft accounts for work and one for personal. The personal one I separate
out by having a different chrome profile. However, for work, I have to wrestle
with the login screen for about 6 iterations everytime I want a new tab. I use
one MS account for azure, another for office 365. Regardless of which one I
enter/select, it always prompts me for the password for the other account.
Drives me effing nuts. Plus that whol "is this a business account or a
personal account" selection. jesus. so frustrating.

~~~
DrPhish
That drives me insane as well. I expect it is nessecary in some fashion, but
the implementation is severely frustrating. It should be "sticky" and allow
you to switch if required. Also the personal accounts can only have 16
character max passwords, so my normal wetware password generation algorithms
don't work

~~~
hpshelton
When was the last time you tried to change your password? Long password
support has been live for a long time.

------
MS_Buys_Upvotes
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5jg8y6/fyi_crimin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5jg8y6/fyi_criminals_are_still_attempting_to_use/)

Reddit discusses hackers using weak Skype credentials to access other MS
accounts and bypass 2FA

~~~
Markoff
thanks for this, i couldn't figure out months ago how could be my Microsoft
account compromised despite using 2FA, seem after this hack and resetting all
of my security settings they removed ability to sign in with old Skype account
since when i went to check it now it was already unchecked

though i still see in recent activity unsuccessful attempts for IMAP
synchronization from all over world, not sure if they are trying to use some
old app password, which i reset after discovering have

------
legohead
Funny to see this thread after what's happening to me today.

I need to get access to my Microsoft Office online documents. I go to login
and it has me do a security check with my email: microsoft@mydomain.com. It's
supposed to send a code to verify my email, but I never get it. So I try
option 2, a different email: microsoft@myotherdomain.com. Never get the
code...

Hmm, does it not like the word microsoft? So I try myname@mydomain.com, and I
get the code! Although now I have to answer a bunch of questions and my
account is under review -- I should get an answer within 24 hours.

But what about the future? My real account is still microsoft@mydomain.com.
Will this keep happening? :\

------
stretchwithme
Don't get me started.

I once subscribed to Office and am pretty sure I had to supply my first and
last name once if not multiple times. But the final confirmation email still
started with "Dear null null".

~~~
arkitaip
Serves you right, little Bobby Tables.

------
philliphaydon
As much as I dislike Google services. Their account stuff just works. For
everything they create. It just works.

I love MS stuff, but they have the worst account process ever, closely
followed by Apple.

I do wish MS would sort their act out in regards to accounts.

I lost my Xbox account trying to transfer my games and such between my windows
live account and an old account. Lost my games and points and credits :(

~~~
jevogel
I once lost my Xbox Live account because I deleted the associated Hotmail
address that I never used. I didn't realize it until the attached credit card
expired years later. I went to update the card info on the website and
couldn't get on due to the non-existent email address. Spent hours with
customer service over multiple calls and no one was able to link the account
to a different email address or add a new credit card for me. Just insane.

------
franciscop
I have been using Hotmail and Skype since the old days, but now my Skype (on
Linux, mind you) is totally unusable and the Outlook online abomination is
becoming _WORSE_ every day. I just noticed today that they added a DOOOONG
sound to the _" webapp"_, but then when I open it nothing happened. It was a
message in the "Others" recently added tab (not a folder, not spam, somewhere
in the middle but physically in a totally different place). I love the "Done"
action from Inbox (Google) as it's a perfect categorization.

So I'm migrating everything to Inbox (Gmail) and people don't care at all
switching to Hangouts instead of Skype.

------
jackvalentine
I got caught by another Skype issue - merged my long-time Skype account with
my MS account.

Old skype account - kinda bad password.

MS account - great password, 2FA.

Then I got alerts that someone in China had logged in to my MS account. I
couldn't figure out how they'd done this until...

I figured out they'd signed in to skype, using my old skype username and old
skype password that were still valid for some unknown reason after merging it
in to my far more secure MS account.

~~~
ap46
It wasn't manually hacked, there's someone out there running a program to
brute force known Skype usernames & spreading spam & confirming more Skype
usernames. Alphanumeric password upto 9digits are not safe absolutely.

~~~
jackvalentine
Well of course

------
chrisper
Yes, they need to fix a lot of things. Also if you use Onedrive online, you
are automatically logged into Skype every time you use onedrive. You cannot
log out. You can set yourself invisible, but you will be set back to online
next time you log in again. It is ridiculous.

Another point is that you cannot use a "work account" you use in office365 as
your personal account for OneDrive etc.

------
twakefield
My skype account was hacked (who's wasn't?) a few months ago. I tried to
access it to change the password but in the process I was forced to link it
some other Microsoft account that I didn't even know I had. It took me half
the day to recover my original passwords then reset them. Now to get to Skype
(if I'm logged out) I have to log into some Microsoft cloud identity thing.

All for a service (skype) I rarely use.

------
ianmcgowan
Google used to be pretty bad at this too, but they seem to have their act
together these days. It's not an easy problem. But yeah, when I go to use a
Microsoft service online it's always a crapshoot, and certain products require
either a personal account or a work account. Syncing OneNote is a confusing
mess because of this. And don't get me started on Lync/Skype for Business...

~~~
orionblastar
It is not always easy to do a good quality control when they downsize their
best people and hire people willing to work for less money but a lower
quality.

Back in the 1990s I worked as a tech and programmer. I issued bug reports to
Microsoft and they would fix them in the next service pack or version. But in
doing so they'd change the Windows API calls which broke my Visual Basic
programs. I had the Dan Appleman book on API calles but had to surf the net
for the changes made to them on Microsoft blogs for developers or Yahoo Clubs
on programming, etc. Everytime they made a book, it was outdated as soon as it
was published.

~~~
stevenwoo
Still have a couple of the Microsoft Developer Network t-shirts they mailed to
you for reporting bugs in Visual C++/MSDN.

I can remember having an issue with a Windows API call in the 90's and having
to go on usenet to find someone who knew where to download an example program
that Microsoft inexplicably removed from subsequent MSDN CDs.

------
wslh
If I were Satya Nadella I would fire top Skype executives first, cannot
believe how a rational company can destroy this brand. Full stop.

------
douche
I've got at least three different Microsoft accounts with the same email
address. Supposedly there's a way to link them, so that this becomes less of a
clusterfuck, but I've never been able to make that work. So it's just this big
mishmash of resources associated more or less at random between these
different accounts.

It's russian roulette every time I try to login to something that's
authenticated with Microsoft accounts, and trying to remember which login I
need to use to access which resources is more than I can keep track of, across
outlook, MSDN, forums, Azure, Active Directory, etc, etc.

------
Zekio
TL;DR: impossible to delete old skype accounts without knowing EVERYTHING
about it.

I have like 3 old skype accounts which shows up with my name which I can't
access due to me not having the email addresses anymore nor do I remember the
passwords, so it is a pain when people try to add me on skype and I contacted
them and asked if they could delete my old accounts since I can't access them
and they said that is not possible since I don't remember all the security
questions and answers, wouldn't even give me the questions so I could have a
chance at answering them..

Edit: added TL;DR

------
gwicks56
Managing accounts is a massive problem everywhere. I recently moved from
Australia to the USA, and I have been having this problem ad-nauseam. Try
switching your Google developer account to a US bank, or your amazon, paypal
or god knows how many others. I accidentally put skype credits on the wrong
skype account, and was hoping to be able to merge accounts somehow, but ending
up just deciding it wasn't worth the $20.

~~~
beerbajay
I lived in the US, got a paypal account, all good. Moved to sweden, updated
address + bank info, still ok. Moved back to USA, now: "You cannot change your
country of residence. If you have moved open a new paypal account". WTF? This
is a paypal account I've had since the early 2000's.

~~~
gwicks56
Yeah I had to basically set up new Ebay and paypal accounts, which is a pain,
because you go from having 100's on good reviews as a buyer and seller to
having none. It's a hard problem, in some a ways a universal internet ID would
make life so much easier, but it would also make tyranny much easier.

------
mevile
Microsoft should fix this, but I have learned to never link my personal
accounts with work accounts after the Dropbox enterprise debacle that led to
users losing their personal files! after having their Dropbox linked to
enterprise Dropbox and then leaving the company.

These situations where you mix personal and enterprise/job accounts become
edge cases that can be catastrophic for users stuck in them after they leave
companies.

------
inopinatus
To some extent I think this is a user category error. Similarly, one of my
platform's most frequent support requests is account recovery due to a change
of employment. The number of people who use their work email for personal
accounts, without thinking about the long-term consequences, is staggering.

Protip, don't name anything expecting you can change it later. See also: S3
buckets.

~~~
kolemcrae
Or, you know, let us unlink accounts or change the username, two pretty normal
and reasonable things to request.

~~~
inopinatus
There's nothing that makes either reasonable, other than "I demand it".

------
maxfurman
This is bad, and I'm not letting Microsoft off the hook here. But, there's an
easy workaround for this particular case: Use an alias, such as
myrealemail+msft@example.com, for the new account.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
Just tested, My office 365 account bounces for this type of address.

~~~
tankenmate
This is why I use Postfix and Cyrus for my personal mail. I get Postfix to
pre-parse transform the '-' char to '+'; this way I can use email addresses
that stupid systems don't barf at but can still get mail delivered to the
right mailbox (including sub mailbox if it exists). e.g. me-junk@mydomain.tld
goes directly to my junk mail box :)

~~~
tankenmate
I should have mentioned in the previous post, recipient_canonical_maps is
probably what you are looking for. Depending, trivial_rewrite might also fit
your use case depending on how early into the delivery process you want the
addresses to be rewritten.

------
okreallywtf
Looking into active directory based features in Azure (key vault, etc)
convinces me that somehow active directory is to blame for a lot of the
confusing account issues around Azure. I get the feeling a lot of the
microsoft authentication systems are built on top of active directory, which
does not seem like the most straightforward auth system out there.

------
turc1656
I am also having a Microsoft account issue that is similar to this.

[https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/outlook_com/forum/oaccou...](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/outlook_com/forum/oaccount-ocloseacc/problem-between-work-and-personal-
accounts/38eae1e5-5ba9-4eb8-9c88-de9ac88b841a?tm=1489679818866&auth=1)

Difference for me is that I have no idea how the work account was created. I
do an have Office365 account from my employer but we just recently switched
and I had this problem before that account was created. Also, that Office365
account is linked to my actual work email. The problem I am experiencing is a
"work" account that was mysteriously created on my personal email and it makes
no sense. Over a month and no one has responded.

Anyone here have any ideas?

------
bpicolo
Google drive also has extremely frustrating multi-login issues. It frequently
forces me to log out of all accounts in order to correctly access drive on a
specific one. It's entirely random whether it works or not. It's just
infuriating.

~~~
skinnymuch
This drives me crazy. My business partner insists on using Google Drive. So I
go along with it. But not being allowed to access my Drive while being logged
into other Google accounts is so annoying.

~~~
retromario
I'm not saying it's a solution, but as a workaround for similar situations it
can help to use two browsers, one for each account.

~~~
jordanthoms
Yeah, the best solution here is to use multiple chrome profiles with one for
each account. Google's multiple sign-in is incredibly buggy and is a huge pain
when integrating with their oauth APIs

------
bsg75
> Let me change my Skype username. What the hell, this is just obvious.

The number of services that don't allow this is also insane. Its as if they
use the username itself as a key, rather than one that is masked from the user
allowing such changes.

------
tatersolid
My corp can't use Azure. We really want to, we're mostly a MSFT shop that runs
a largish SaaS application. But Microsoft automatically linked the
organizational Azure account for our corporate internet domain to the personal
account of an ops guy because of some cookie being present when he created the
organizational Azure account. After six months of support calls MSFT cannot
get it unscrewed. We're spending 50k USD per month with another cloud
provider, and want to move to Azure to take advantage of SQL Azure and MSDN
credits. But their screwed up account management system is losing them this
revenue.

------
s_kilk
I wonder how many different Auth systems Microsoft has
created/subsumed/whatever over the years. It'd be cool too see a graphic of
all those services and how they have merged, or in what way they are layered
currently.

------
josteink
This thing singlehandedly made me ditch Skype.

I didn't know which my login were and it was random which contacts I would see
and which contacts were able to message me at all.

I just gave up on it and never looked back.

------
gambiting
Ever since Lync(corporate IM system) got merged into Skype so that now it's
just "skype for business" it's atrocious, easily the worst application I have
on my PC.

If someone goes offline, Skype will show you how long they have been offline
for. Except....that it's just a random number. I can set my status to offline
right now, and my coworker will see that I've been offline for.....168 days.
Or 700 days. Or 35 minutes.

Microsoft knew about this bug for years, and there is no fix for it.

Frequently, when I send messages to my coworkers, they appear ABOVE older
messages in the coversation, which is extremely confusing, because obviously
the whole window will flash to indicate you got a new message, but in reality
you have to scroll up to actually see it.

Highlighting text is just broken, I dare anyone from MS to reliably highlight
just a portion of text without the selection jumping to seemingly random part
of the window without any indication how or why.

Arbitrarily low character limit, so you can't paste snippets of code.

During conference calls, audio just dies from time to time, and the only thing
you can do about it is kill the conversation and start again. This is a
product based off Skype, for fucks sake, that MS is charging us millions of
dollars for globally, and that doesn't even have the basic functionality
working correctly.

~~~
douche
The Skype for Business client is still essentially the same as when it was
Lync 2013. In the early days of the rebranding, the version number had only
jumped a couple dozen revision numbers, keeping the same major and minor
versions, and still calling itself Lync 2013 on the about dialog. Changes on
the server-side have been even less drastic.

Consumer Skype is still an entirely separate code base. The two IM platforms
don't even speak the same protocol, and just barely interoperate.

The naming change is illogical as all hell, but Microsoft bought Skype, and
suddenly Lync needed to be rebranded under the Skype umbrella. Before it was
Lync, it was Office Communicator, before that Live Communicator, and before
that, I believe went under an MSN name. It's always been hitched to the latest
marketing bandwagon.

Lync/S4B is, sadly, one of the better enterprise IM systems, in comparison to
other big players in that space, like Sametime, Jabber or Hipchat. It's still
hot garbage.

------
ap46
Someone has been successfully running brute forced attempts at login into
accounts & spreading/amassing valid usernames & attempting brute force logins
on them like a pyramid. My password of alphanumeric password of 9 digits got
cracked & Skype fucking sent spam to everyone & now is most likely attempting
to brute force their accounts as well.....they can't even implement a rate
limiter for the logins against an IP.

------
stagbeetle
Wooh, am I glad I'm not the only one experiencing account problems.

An event I'm going to requires a Skype account of a preliminary interview. So
I go to sign up with my gmail, and I'm able to create an account. However, I
already had a Skype account through MS's weird Outlook program (I signed up
with my gmail for Outlook, and it automatically created a Skype account
without telling me . . . for the gmail account).

This bricks both accounts by loading to an error page when I login, telling me
to go to MS's website to fix my account. I go there and then after spelunking
through the maze of a UI, finally get to a page that tells me I need to call
Microsoft to diagnosis the problem.

Screw that noise. It's 2017, this is archaic.

Luckily, there's a third option for signing up and that's through a phone
number. I do that, but now I don't know what to enter for the username field
in my interview app. I look through Skype's help docs, and it doesn't say
anything about phone numbers.

I assumed my phone number _is_ my username and that's how people can add me.
Anyway, that's what I put in the app and I'm hoping that the UN acts like a UN
and not a phone number with calling charges.

What a mess. It's also partly the event's fault for using Skype when better
alternatives exist.

------
kayoone
this is not even touching on the security issues that arise from the fact
skype does not support 2FA and the merged legacy accounts remain vulnerable.

~~~
devereaux
What do you mean?

If you have a outlook.com email, a merged a legacy skype account, and 2FA,
what is the attack method that can be used against you?

~~~
thewavelength
As of my knowledge, you can log in to Skype without 2FA using an outlook.com-
email-address even though it has 2FA enabled.

~~~
hpshelton
If you have proof of a repro for this, please reach out to our security
team(s), but to the best of my knowledge this is false. 2FA works on both
regular and merged Skype and Microsoft Accounts on all endpoints.

------
dvtv75
I recently upgraded my Linux PC, and had to reinstall Skype.

So I sign in to the new Skype, and can't remember my password. That's OK, I'll
just get them to reset it. Oh, my email address expired while my PC was
sitting on the junk heap? That's OK, I'll follow their prompts, this shouldn't
be too difficult.

"Unfortunately, we were unable to verify your ownership of this account using
the information you provided. [...]

Please submit a new account verification form At this point, your best option
is to submit a new form with as much accurate information as you can gather."

I've provided the details of six different users who were on my contact list,
the complete email address I used to use, and there is nothing else I can do.
No email address I can contact, no phone number to ring.

Oh, and most importantly, there's no "Import old account settings" option.

Screw you, Microsoft.

------
swamplander
Similar hate post coming from me soon. I have an MSA & Office 365 (Azure AD)
login using the same email. I use my MSA to login to my Surface, but now, all
the sudden, I can't setup Outlook to connect to my O365 email. Their solution:
rename your MSA. My response "no freaking way... no telling how much stuff
that's going to break as I've used that MSA for over a decade".

And then I read your post today... I'm glad I closed my Surface and went back
to my MacBook last night...

Ref: [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Outlook/Can-t-
connect...](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Outlook/Can-t-connect-
Outlook-2016-to-my-O365-Mailbox/m-p/63421#M555)

------
VSerge
Skype also has a knack for randomly asking you to input a security code that
it'll text or call you with, except... When I have recently needed to do it, I
got 0 call or text. The email Skype offers to send a code to, in my case,
isn't the email associated with the account but some old email that no longer
exists (old recovery email I think). So I'm effectively locked out of my
account on any new device for the time being, and getting zero feedback when
reaching out to customer support. It is a maddeningly bad user experience, and
I cannot believe a company like microsoft would let such crippling bugs exist
on such widely distributed products.

------
caconym_
I have two or maybe one Microsoft account(s). It's impossible to tell because
I seem to have made two accounts that some parts of their systems think are
the same, and other parts think are different. My theory is that I was a
victim of some sort of migration bug at some point because I have had at least
one account for a very long time (probably since Halo 2 for that online
multiplayer). This problem makes it impossible to update relevant details on
either account, IIRC.

Their support is the worst; they were totally unable to even comprehend the
problem I was seeing, let alone fix it. I just gave up trying to use them.

------
shinamee
I should have raised this issue long time ago but why should I do so, after
all its not like they're paying me to fix their shits.

I basically moved from Skype to Zoom.us with all my clients

------
tostitos1979
Had to deal with Windows/Skype/Office login issues for a senior. It is insane
that people who pirate have an easier time than paying customers.

~~~
i336_
Not necessarily looking to go in the direction you mention, but I'm curious
what you mean nonetheless - AFAIK, Skype's consumer/personal offering is free,
and then you need to subscribe for business accounts because that all runs on
microsoft servers.

Are you referring to a different product, or are there copies of old
enterprise skype server systems floating around out there?

~~~
tostitos1979
This person had Skype credits and some calling plan. Very consumer level :)

~~~
i336_
Sorry - I think there's been a misunderstanding. I was referring to the
context you mentioned in the latter half of your comment, and the supporting
circumstances for that.

(In other words, I'm not aware of any way Skype can be pirated, and I'm not
particularly aware of any, err, _accessible_ commercial alternatives.)

------
ska
The whole MS account management is a hot mess.

I'm currently dealing with an issue with different versions of the same (MS)
software getting authenticated via a domain but ending up pointing at two
different MS accounts associated with the same email address, and hence
consuming two licenses. 2 weeks of "support" back and forth hasn't helped,
they seem to have good tooling to introspect what is happening.

------
bflesch
I was hit by this issue a couple of days ago and suddenly I needed to use my
old Skype login but the password of my second microsoft account.

------
jakebasile
Allowing username changes should be basic functionality in any system that has
usernames. People change, names change, and so on.

~~~
jackvalentine
And if you want to avoid abuse rate limit it to one change every 3 months, or
$10 per change or SOMETHING.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
Outlook doesn't validate email addresses correctly. Their validation is a
complete failure. Even # isn't allowed in addresses.
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.4](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.4)

------
kazinator
Skype no longer works on my wife's Windows 7 laptop. The latest update was
pushed without being accompanied by the new MSVC DLL's that it needs, and so
doesn't start. I haven't been able to install the redistributable run-time
separately, and so it is in a foobared state.

~~~
kolemcrae
Oh man, mine too! I have to use the web app!

------
richev
The real fun starts if you need to change the email address associated with
your Microsoft account.

Six months and multiple support calls later and I'm still receiving Azure
billing information and Xbox newsletters at the old address.

------
mschuster91
Android still does not support logging in with accounts created by signing in
with Facebook, despite dozens of support threads and complaints... in case
anyone at MS reads this, it sucks.

~~~
Neliquat
Why on earth would you want to sign on using facebook? Not saying this isnt a
bug, but what is the use case sceneraio?

~~~
mschuster91
Single sign-on. It's really nice to NOT have to copy-paste usernames and
passwords from password managers into native apps but use a simple "sign in
with FB/Twitter" and it's done. 1 second with a decent internet connection vs
60+s for switching to Keepass, entering the wallet password, actually finding
the password, copying the username, switching back to $app, pasting the
username, switching back to Keepass, hope it didn't for some reason decide to
randomly lock, copy the password, switch back to $app, hope it didn't forget
the username in the meantime...

edit: it becomes a special annoyance when an app decides to lock you out after
n days (n usually = 30). Great from a security POV but hell is that annoying
if it happens to multiple apps at once on a day. Or when you have 20+ apps
with unique logins when you reset your phone... as login credentials/tokens
are (rightfully) not cloud synced. Android desperately needs a password-
autocomplete API, secured by e.g. the fingerprint sensor found on new-ish
Samsung devices.

------
jondiggsit
I switched my (small) business back to running on Microsoft products like
Office 365 and the account issues with my employees are driving me INSANE.

------
StreamBright
I was running into the exact same issue. I am hoping that some product can
challenge Skype and replace it entirely. It would be better at this stage.

------
justin66
Merging a work account to a personal account just seems like a stupid thing to
do to begin with. No good could have come of this.

~~~
kolemcrae
I don't remember merging them. It must have happened years and years ago. I
haven't worked for that company in a VERY long time.

------
Kenji
Trust me, the Xbox accounts aren't much better. It is painful. I generally
avoid Microsoft accounts like the plague.

------
oregontechninja
I stopped using Skype forever ago, the service just turned to crap. Facebook
video calls are easier at this point.

------
lavalampkid
I hope someone out there @ Skype or Microsoft sees this and puts it in front
of the right people...

------
BadassFractal
I try to avoid using Skype if I can, it feels unloved, like it's barely
hanging together.

------
merb
* and Office 365 Business Accounts vs Microsoft Accounts and make all of it linkable.

------
ikeboy
Any good way to search all my Skype chats? Or download complete history to a
file?

------
trevyn
Or just stop using Microsoft products? It's been pretty clear to me since
about 1985 that other companies make equivalent products that tend to be more
powerful and more pleasant to use. Your time and mental state are valuable!

~~~
orionblastar
That is why people stuck to Wordperfect and Lotus Smartsuite bundles instead
of Microsoft Office. Until new versions of Windows broke the third party
office apps.

GRR Martin still uses Wordstar in a DOS machine because he doesn't trust
Windows to not crash or reboot on him and lose his data.

Problem is the Microsoft tax on Intel or AMD PCs that OEMs have to pay even if
they don't install Windows or Office. But now Office 2016 is installed but
user needs to buy a key to use it for activation.

I suggest that people use Libreoffice because it can read docx files etc.

------
dboreham
Mine:

Corporate account, used for Windows logon

Skype personal account

XBox account because they made me make one when my kids were young

A second personal account used for something I forget. Posting on MS help fora
possibly.

Mind you I have three active Google accounts.

------
red023
People: You need to quit your usage of M$ products and services, this is
insane.

------
digitalmaster
Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

