Does the Microsoft Account get a local username

I just switched from a local account to a "Microsoft Account" and I'm wondering now which local username I have now? Do I still have my old local username?

If not, i.e. for changing permissions of folders etc, which username (and domain?) do I have to use?

FiveO

Posted 2012-10-22T08:10:15.170

Reputation: 7 940

Answers

Yes - run net users from the command line, or hit +R, type compmgmt.msc and expand the users list to see your user name - it should be the name you login as minus the @ sign and the domain name. So if you login as thisisjustasample@hotmail.com, your user name on Windows 8 would almost certainly be thisisjustasample.

Mark Allen

Posted 2012-10-22T08:10:15.170

Reputation: 2 801

There I just see my old local username I had before. Seems to be connected to that Microsoft Account now... – FiveO – 2012-10-22T08:57:50.540

That sounds right to me. In my case it was a new PC so I didn't have an old account, but after I signed in with my Microsoft account I wound up with a local account of just my first name. – Mark Allen – 2012-10-22T18:30:57.657

I’m relaying a comment from an anonymous user who says, “In my case, the name is the first five letters of the login name followed by series of digits; e.g., thisisjustasample became thisi_000.” – Scott – 2013-03-12T23:19:45.120

It depends on your configuration; in Netplwiz, you can choose between username_xxx and simply username or the system will manage it automatically.

John Doe

Posted 2012-10-22T08:10:15.170

Reputation: 1

More information would improve your answer – Dave M – 2015-11-29T13:52:38.567

Is there a way to define username by hand? In my case I have Microsoft account "last_name.first_name@gmail.com" my local username is just first 5 letters and I want "first_name" part. – mac – 2015-12-03T22:26:12.983

In a clean installation of Windows 8.1, when I associate a Microsoft Account as a user on the local machine, the username is created from the First Name portion of the Display Name of the account with special characters removed. For example, my Display Name is Jason R. Coombs, the First Name portion is Jason R.. As a result, Windows creates the local username as JasonR. The user portion of my e-mail appears to be irrelevant.

Jason R. Coombs

Posted 2012-10-22T08:10:15.170

Reputation: 1 952

-2

I also found just the first name is the actual username. This is important for certain third-party applications that borrow the login credentials from Windows.

The Windows 8.1 environment NEVER asks for your username. When it shows the 'username' it is in an email address form. This may not be the actual username (as the previous post shows, it may be just the first name portion), which makes figuring out what the heck these third-party applications are looking for... entertaining. I eventually guessed my own, since I had set up my Windows copy only a few weeks earlier, but I am running into this problem at several places. Thanks for the solution.

This reminds me of the obnoxious 'hide extensions for known file types' setting that invited all sorts of mislabeled viruses to get clicked on, which is annoying, useless, and potentially dangerous.

sumdumguy

Posted 2012-10-22T08:10:15.170

Reputation: 1