Paul Thurrott - Windows 8 Secrets

You can bypass this limitation by entering the credentials for an administrator account. You do so using a feature called User Account Control, which we’ll examine later in this chapter.

In previous Windows versions, most people simply used an administrator-type account because standard user accounts were so limiting and annoying. But with the move to multi-PC households and the PC-to-PC sync capabilities one gets with using a Microsoft account instead of a local account, our expectation is that the vast majority of Windows 8 users will no longer use local accounts. It’s still supported, of course, but it’s just depreciated.

Signing in to a Microsoft account is now the default, and preferred, way of doing things. A Microsoft account provides you with all of the benefits of a local account—simplicity and the ability to have both administrators and less privileged users—plus the benefits of the multi-PC settings replication of a domain account, and, of course, integration with Microsoft’s online services and third-party services like Facebook, Twitter, and more.

But the Microsoft account is more than a nicety. It’s required for many of the Metro-style apps that are built into Windows 8, including the productivity apps—Mail, Calendar, People, and Messaging—the digital media and Xbox apps—Xbox Music, Xbox Video, and Xbox LIVE Games—and more. Windows 8 was designed to integrate deeply with a Microsoft account, much like Windows Phone before it. And a Microsoft account is super easy to use.

For these reasons, we believe that signing in with a Microsoft account is the obvious choice for most Windows 8 users. Furthermore, we pretty much assume that you’re using a Microsoft account throughout this book because of the advantages of doing so.

There’s just one problem. In some cases, you can’t sign in to your PC with a Microsoft account the first time you set up Windows 8. For example, if your PC is offline the first time you use Windows 8, a Microsoft account won’t even be offered. But the more obvious example, perhaps, is a work PC: There’s no way that corporate will let you or other users bypass the built-in security features of their carefully crafted policies and sign in with your personal Microsoft account.

If only there was a way around this limitation.

If you are signing in to a PC with a domain or local account, there are some changes you can make to provide you with the best possible experience. Which you do will depend somewhat on whether you’re currently signing in to Windows 8 with a local account or a domain account. These changes include:

You cannot do this with a domain account. Only a local account can be switched to a Microsoft account.

• Switch a local account to a Microsoft account:If you opted out of the Microsoft account sign-in when you first set up Windows 8, perhaps because you were confused by this new account type and simply wanted things to be as close as possible to the way it was in Windows 7, Microsoft actually lets you change your local account after the fact and switch it to a Microsoft account.

To make this change, navigate to PC Settings and then Users. Then, under Your account, click the Switch to a Microsoft account button, as shown in Figure 12-1. Voila! Problem solved.

You can also use this same interface to switch from a Microsoft account to a local account. And no, we can’t think of a single reason why you’d want to do this.

Figure 12-1:You can convert your local account to a Microsoft account at any time.

• Connect a domain account to a Microsoft account:If you’re using a domain account, you can’t switch it to a Microsoft account. But you can link your domain sign-in with your Microsoft account, achieving the same benefits as you’d get by simply signing in with a Microsoft account. In the business, this is what we call a “best of both worlds” solution.

To do so, navigate to PC Settings and then Users. Under Your account, click the Connect your Microsoft account button. When you do, the screen shown in Figure 12-2 appears. Here, you choose which PC settings you’d like to sync with your domain account.

Figure 12-2:You can connect a domain account to a Microsoft account and even choose which settings to sync.

After choosing which settings to sync, you will sign in to your Microsoft account and confirm or enter your security verification information, just as you do when you sign in with this type of account normally. And from now on, you can use Microsoft’s account services—and the bundled apps in Windows 8 that take advantage of them—seamlessly, without needing to sign in with each app. Actually, it’s even better than that: Some apps simply won’t work unless you sign in with a Microsoft account. This linking process makes them work.

Okay, there’s a huge gotcha to this scheme. (You had to sort of expect there was going to be one.) It goes like this: Your domain administrators simply may not allow it. Whether they do will depend on a number of factors, but it all boils down to whether your environment is highly controlled. So all you can do is try and hope for the best.

• Sign in to app groups with a Microsoft account:There is a third approach, one that provides a more limited way to access some Microsoft account goodness, but without changing your domain or local account in any way. That is, instead of linking or switching your existing sign-in account, you can simply try to run one of the connected apps in Windows 8 and then sign in when prompted by a screen that will resemble Figure 12-3.

Figure 12-3:If you can’t or won’t use a Microsoft account, you can instead sign in to various app groups.

This approach isn’t as sophisticated as using (or linking) a Microsoft account. You’ll need to sign in a few different times, to different app groups—Microsoft considers the productivity (or what it calls “communications”) apps to be one group, for example, and the Xbox (media and games) apps to be a separate group. And you don’t get the PC-to-PC settings sync functionality that’s available with a real Microsoft account sign-in. But if you don’t have a choice—or are just really, really stubborn—this will at least let you use the built-in Metro apps to their fullest.

In previous Windows versions, we managed local user accounts in Control Panel, a desktop user interface that dates back to the earliest days of Windows. But in Windows 8, basic user account management tasks now occur within the Metro-based PC Settings instead, while, confusingly, a few more advanced or esoteric features can still be found in legacy control panels. So you may find yourself moving back and forth between the two environments depending on your needs.

Let’s start with the basics.

Like many Metro interfaces, the Users section in PC Settings is almost disarmingly simple. As you can see in Figure 12-4, this UI lets you manage features related to your own and other user accounts. (This figure displays the version of this screen that most users will see, since it depicts a Microsoft account.)