If you have configured a second email account for password restoration, Microsoft will send you a password to this email address. CAPTCHA cracking tools are probably much better at this.) (The most difficult part here is to enter the correct CAPTCHA. If you still have access to the computer you can recognize connected accounts by their email address in the Manage Accounts app in the Control Panel.Ĭonnected Microsoft account Online password resetĪnother advantage of a Microsoft account is that you can reset your password of online.

You can then proceed with step 6 in the first guide in my next post. If you get the “The system is not authoritative for the specified account…” error message, you are using a Microsoft account. If you don’t know if you have been using a Microsoft account or a local account, you can follow the procedure for the local account until step 9. You can decide during the Windows 8 setup process which account type you use to log on to Windows 8. The main advantages are that you don’t have to sign in when you use one of Microsoft’s cloud apps and that Windows 8 app settings are synchronized between PCs. The email address can be a Hotmail account, a Live account, an account, or any other email address that you registered in Microsoft’s cloud. All credentials for this account are stored only on the local computer.Ī Microsoft account is connected to an email address which is why they it also called “connected account” its credentials are stored in Microsoft’s cloud and are locally cached, so you can also log on without an Internet connection.

Just to be sure not to confuse anybody, I should explain the difference between a local Windows 8 account and a Microsoft account, so you know if the procedure described in this post is for you or if you can reset the password of a local account.Ī local account is just what we always used to log on to a Windows machine (if the computer is not a member of a Windows domain).

I describe how you can do this on Windows 8 in my next post. All you have to do is enable the built-in administrator account. However, there is a workaround that allows you to log on-even if you have no other account for this Windows 8 computer-and access the data of the Microsoft account for which you lost the password. The system is not authoritative for the specified account and therefore cannot complete the operation - System error 8646 has occurred.

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