How do you guys deal with creating Microsoft Accounts for Clients?

[drnick5]

Hey Folks,

I'm personally not a fan of Windows 8 or Office 2013 and continue to use Win 7 and Office 2010. But for clients with new machines who need Office 2013, a Microsoft account needs to be created for them. This is a sort of a pain in the ass, since you need personal information from the client to create it, as well as access to their email address to confirm the account creation. Just curious as to how you guys handle this.

Our office isn't really set up for working 1 on 1 with a client (we do that type of work remotely or onsite). Are there any easy ways you can think of to accomplish creating the account? I miss the days of being able to install software you paid for without tieing it to a cloud account.

thanks in advance for any suggestions

 

[frederick]

Good question. For businesses, we create a single administrator windows account for the whole office/client. Then set up the individual accounts for each employee.

For residential clients, we contact them and see if they have any preference first, and get the password they would like as well for that account. We can also set them up with a temp password, and either show them how to change it or give them a print out of instructions.

 

[nlinecomputers]

By avoiding it where possible. I use local accounts for Windows 8.x and try to buy copies of Office 2013 that do not require Microsoft Accounts. Office 2013 Home and Business OEM download seems to do that most of the time. I get them from DiscountMountain. Most of the time it doesn't require activation. Sometimes it does. I've yet to figure out the reason but most of the time it works without activation. Something about the key tells office to skip it during the install.

 

[drnick5]

My thoughts exactly, however everytime I've installed office 2013 I've been asked to link it to a microsoft account, and it doesn't give me any other option. I've bought them from several places and had this happen with each one. Although I'll admit I haven't installed office 2013 all that much. I just assumed 2013 required an MS account.

 

[e2346437]

Hey Folks,

I'm personally not a fan of Windows 8 or Office 2013 and continue to use Win 7 and Office 2010. But for clients with new machines who need Office 2013, a Microsoft account needs to be created for them. This is a sort of a pain in the ass, since you need personal information from the client to create it, as well as access to their email address to confirm the account creation. Just curious as to how you guys handle this.

Our office isn't really set up for working 1 on 1 with a client (we do that type of work remotely or onsite). Are there any easy ways you can think of to accomplish creating the account? I miss the days of being able to install software you paid for without tieing it to a cloud account.

thanks in advance for any suggestions

I create an account for each user, and document the heck out of the whole process in Evernote. I setup a note with the user's Name, email address, birth date, and the password that I used to setup the account. Make sure to include the key itself! That is everything I need to do a reinstall in the future.

I don't recommend using just one account for the whole office. If the user starts using Skydrive, all their documents will end up under one account.

 

[nlinecomputers]

This is what I have ordered" http://www.discountmountainsoftware.com/miof20hobudo.html

But it has not been consistent. Most of the time it works with out a Microsoft Account but sometimes I am forced to do it. How to avoid it is a mystery.

 

[frederick]

I don't recommend using just one account for the whole office. If the user starts using Skydrive, all their documents will end up under one account.

We disable SkyDrive for this very reason. We set the office up with something else.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Working with businesses only, I don't have to deal with this much. As we deal with OEM and mostly volume licensing.

However...a few weeks ago, took on a big network project where the boss of that business purchased 40x retails of Office 2013 and I had to deal with this bulk activation crap. My client has an Exchange server...so I whipped up a few accounts just for this...activation1, activation2, etc. Seems an e-mail account can only take up to 10x activations.

 

[cyabro]

Not sure if we get different versions of office here in New Zealand but with our copies of 2013 you put the DVD in and start the install.
On the screen that comes up asking you to activate with a Microsoft account there is a line directly below the box, that is waiting for you to enter in the email address, that says something like 'use product key instead'. Click on that and then enter the key from the card supplied in the office 2013 box. No need for any account.

 

[glennd]

Not sure if we get different versions of office here in New Zealand but with our copies of 2013 you put the DVD in and start the install.
On the screen that comes up asking you to activate with a Microsoft account there is a line directly below the box, that is waiting for you to enter in the email address, that says something like 'use product key instead'. Click on that and then enter the key from the card supplied in the office 2013 box. No need for any account.

same here. it wanted to create the online account. i went one step into that process and there's an option to skip it or do it later or whatever the wording is.

 

[frederick]

Working with businesses only, I don't have to deal with this much. As we deal with OEM and mostly volume licensing.

However...a few weeks ago, took on a big network project where the boss of that business purchased 40x retails of Office 2013 and I had to deal with this bulk activation crap. My client has an Exchange server...so I whipped up a few accounts just for this...activation1, activation2, etc. Seems an e-mail account can only take up to 10x activations.

Yeah, that's been a problem we've encountered a couple of times as well. Thankfully the client is understanding. We don't always have an exchange server handy or easy access, so sometimes it is a matter of how the client wants to handle it, either on their own or let us do it.