How to Reset Microsoft Account Password on Windows 10/8.1/8

Microsoft account is widedly used to sign in to Windows 10/8 computer as well as other Microsoft services like Xbox, Hotmail, Skype, OneDrive, Outlook, Office 365 or Windows mobile device. If you unfortunately forgot the account password, then this would casue a huge trouble if you used Microsoft service extensively. The good news is that you can easily reset the account password by following the steps listed in below section.

Note: If you are trying to reset Windows computer password and you do not use an email address to sign in then please know that you are not using a Microsoft account as the default account type and rather you are just using a local account to password-protect your computer. Resetting password of a local account is very different than resetting Microsoft account password.You can follow this guide to reset local account password.

Step 1: Figure out the correct email address of your Microsoft account before proceeding because most of us use a different email for sign in. Generally, Microsoft account ends with the following aliases @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com and so on.

Step 2: Open a web browser on computer or smartphone. Then type https://account.live.com/password/reset into browser's address bar. Or you can simply search "password reset" in Bing search engine.

Step 3: Select "I Forgot My Password" and click on "Next.

Step 4: In the first empty field, type in your email address and go to the next page. (If you have phone numbers linked with your Microsoft account then click on "Use Phone number instead" link and enter your phone number to proceed.)

On each page, you will be asked to fill in the captcha text before continuing. Simply see the text and enter it on the empty field to advance. If you have trouble seeing the text then you can refresh to get a new challenge or you can click on the "Audio" link to listen the captcha text.

Step 5: You will be asked to enter the recovery email address of your Microsoft account to receive a one-time password in your email. Alternately, if you have a phone number linked to your account then enter that phone number to receive a text message on your mobile device.

Step 6: Enter the confirmation code upon receiving it. Sometimes the code takes several minutes to receive but if you do not receive the code then you can request another code within 10 minutes.

Step 7: On the final page, you will be asked to set up a new password for your Microsoft account. Enter the password twice in consecutive fields and click on save to apply the changes.

Now, restart your Windows computer and use this newly modified password to enter into your PC. Alternately, if you are using Xbox, hotmail, outlook, live.com, OneDrive or any other service linked with Microsoft account then their password will be changed as well. On the other hand, if you do not remember your recovery email or phone number then you can request a call back from Microsoft so that you can verify your identification and retrieve your Microsoft account password.

Summary:

Microsoft account has countless benefits such as you can move the settings of Windows computer to other Windows computer automatically. Moreover, you can play with Xbox, automatically setup a Skype or hotmail or live.com account and in addition, you can enjoy the free space of OneDrive for an entire year. Knowing the importance and significance of a Microsoft account, if you end up forgetting the password or wish to reset the password for security reasons then feel free to apply the procedure shared in this article.