Separately – separately! – subscribers to Office 365 business plans have an Office 365 account. (You can use the Hotmail or address for email, if you choose, but you don’t have to – you might only use it to log into other services.) The Microsoft account can be used to log into a Windows 8 computer and it gives you access to online file storage with Skydrive, as well as a host of other services. It is an email address and a password it might be your primary email address, or it might be a Hotmail or address. And in typical Microsoft fashion, they’re not used consistently.Įveryone can and should have a Microsoft account. It’s possible that someday Microsoft may come up with a way to combine them but right now it’s up to you to keep them straight. Microsoft has two different databases that have credentials for you – your email address and a password. Here’s something you need to understand if you want to take advantage of some of Microsoft’s best new services.

There are still areas where you can be hopelessly confused. It has discarded products that were overlapping (Live Mesh discarded in favor of Skydrive, Messenger discarded in favor of Skype), it has streamlined its product names (rebranding the Windows Live services, for example), and introduced the consistent interface used on Windows computers, servers, tablets and phones. Microsoft has taken great strides towards simplifying its products and services.

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