How-to create a Microsoft Account using an existing e-mail

Some of you might say that it is ridiculous to blog about this but new workmates are asked to provide their Microsoft Account (formerly known as Live Id) and often they have to (or want to) create new ones. One thing that obviously is not well-known is the fact that you don’t have to use an e-mail address from one of the Microsoft domains. Since I’m administrating more and more applications that use my fellow’s Microsoft Accounts I’d be interested in a common pattern which would have been easy to achieve if all of them had only used their company e-mail address!

So if you do not have a Microsoft Account yet or want to create a new one here’s how you create it. You can be quite sure that you will have the need for one in the near future (Lifecycle Services aka LCS and Visual Studio Online aka VSO).

• Go to signup.live.com and fill the fields.
• You do not necessarily have to use a Microsoft e-mail address like @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com! There is a link to switch between creating a new e-mail address and using an existing one.
• Once you send the information you’ll get an e-mail to the address you provided. You need to follow a link in there to verify the address and continue with the process.
• That’s it! You see the confirmation message in the browser and your Microsoft Account is ready to go!