Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Automatic Windows Live Login using Internet Explorer on Windows 8.1

If you have recently upgraded to Windows 8.1, you may have noticed that, by default, Microsoft will attempt to have you sign into your computer using your Windows Live ID.

If you agree to that and set up your Windows Live ID as your primary login into your Windows 8.1 local computer, you end up with a side effect in Internet Explorer.

Many business users are familiar with the concept of NTLM logins which allow you to log into your local computer and then seamlessly log into any number of business Intranet websites that are also secured with your Windows NTLM credentials.

However, with the introduction of Windows Live ID authentication, you now get this experience with your Windows Live ID!

Therefore, when you attempt to log into any Microsoft-based websites that required authentication using a Windows Live ID, once you click on the Login link, you will be seamlessly logged into the system using the credentials from your local machine!

For many users, this may be a positive experience because it avoids having to remember separate logins for various Microsoft-based sites.

However, what if you need to use a separate Windows Live ID to log into a system (for example, you have separate personal and business Windows Live ID accounts)?

So what is the workaround??

One of the workarounds is to simply allow the sign in process to occur and then once you are signed into the site, simply click on the "Sign Out" link and you will then be able to log in with your alternative Windows Live ID.


The other workaround is to use an alternative browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to log into these Windows Live ID secured websites.  Since these browsers IGNORE your local computer's Windows Live ID credentials, you will be able to readily log into these Microsoft websites with a separate Windows Live ID.

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