Rant: Why Windows Phone Live Account Linking is EVIL

Ok I might be slightly exaggerating right now, but it’s because I’m pissed; with yesterdays release of Outlook.com and a whole field of untapped email accounts going  live I jumped at the chance to grab a nice one for myself; after all this looks to be the future of Hotmail/Live = Future of WP. Playing it smart (or so I thought) instead of making a whole new account I popped into my live account and “upgraded to new Hotmail” which got me the new clean sleek Outlook interface (no more distracting ads and ugly colors Yay!)- first thoughts about the new email service were that it was beautiful in it’s simplicity (something Microsoft seem to have going for them now; ohh how the tables have turned). After admiring it for a bit I set off on my task; carrying on with the “keep it smart theme” I chose to “rename my account” usin @outlook as the domain,  after choosing a fitting ID that doesn’t sound like a 5th grader made it I hit “rename”.

So far so good, I have a nice new email and a clean interface, life’s good; or not… As I was skimming twitter I saw that the wildly popular Youtube App for WP “MetroTube” just got an update, Sweet! Opening the marketplace I hit “update”, only to be greeting with the following page asking me to sign in.

Usually the above image is what you get when you change your Live ID’s password (tip- change password at least every 6 months); you might be seeing the problem now, notice how the box with the live ID is grayed out, whoops- that means it can’t be changed. “No Problem” said logic, “I’ll just go to my accounts, delete the account and add it with the new username, easy”; well apparently WP isn’t a fan of logic since your main ID can’t be removed, renamed, edited, deleted, changed or any other word that implies that it doesn’t stay the same. Apparently the only way to sign in with my new account name (which keep in mind is THE SAME ACCOUNT) is to Hard reset my phone, yes, Delete all apps, photos, phone numbers, SMS, Whatsapp conversations Etc. and just keep the fun in things WP doesn’t have a backup feature meaning they’re all gone for good.

Basically right now I have two options, either never use the marketplace again, or lose all my data (including some Nokia apps that can’t be re-installed due to region restriction), so just a word of advice to you guys, don’t switch to the new outlook unless your willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING.

Edit: True there is a warning before renaming your account; which is why i’m not ranting at outlook (I am to blame) I’m complaining about the difficulty of  changing/editing an ID (outlook just happened to be in the line of fire)

Category: Applications, Nokia, Rant, Windows Phone