Windows Accounts create a VERY Confusing MESS

I have nothing much good to say about "Microsoft Accounts".

-> Then you should use local accounts. They work perfectly.

I was trying to provide feedback using the Feedback Hub. The process eventually required me to "sign in" with a Microsoft Account.

-> The feedback hub is a web interface. It is not tied to the PC you currently use. You can use your own MS account without affecting the client's PC.

Well .. it is confusing, but that's not Microsoft's fault. A Microsoft account is simply Microsoft's brand name for their version of a cloud account, just like a Google account and iCloud are Google's and Apple's brand names, respectively, for their versions of a cloud account. It's the idea of a cloud account that's confusing, until you finally get the hang of it.

And I'll bet that what makes a cloud account so confusing is that, depending on how it's accessed, it can look and work just like a local account. Only it's not a local account.

I don't know much about Macs, but you can sign in to Windows with your Microsoft account, just like I can sign in to my Chromebook with my Google account, and it feels and works the same as signing in with a local account. Only it's different.

On your friend's computer, I don't think you can give feedback that comes from you directly to Microsoft just by signing in to your Microsoft account online. If I'm wrong about that I hope someone will correct me. Instead, I believe you have to actually create a user account on your friend's computer with your Microsoft account credentials, and use your user account's Feedback hub, or the feedback links in the Settings app, to provide your feedback. And then, when you're done, delete your user account on your friend's computer. Sounds like a lot of work. It would be easier to wait until you got back to your own computer.

Is all this making sense? If it is, I tip my hat to you because it took me a while to figure this out. 

Thanks for the responses:

Well, I *do* use local accounts.  Sometimes Users get ahead of me and end up with Microsoft accounts for login.

As pointed out, they are "different".  The problem is in knowing how they differ in detail.

And then, even with local accounts, using Office uses a Microsoft account and that adds to the confusion.

Once more: what's different?  How to deal with it?  etc.

"You can use your own MS account without affecting the client's PC."
"I don't think you can give feedback that comes from you directly to Microsoft just by signing in to your Microsoft account online."

The first answer would be good. I do get it that it's a web page, etc. but web pages are pretty sophisticated any more.....

The second answer sounds like a guess - which is generally where I am on this: Guessing.

I really don't care *who* the feedback appears to come from.

I only care to Submit the feedback.

Eventually I realized that I could submit the feedback (but, it appears, NOT receive any comments, questions, replies I guess unless I logged in).  So, I submitted the feedback without logging in.

... what's different?  How to deal with it?  etc.

A local account exists only on your computer. That means you can only sign in to it when you're sitting in front of your computer. That's easy to understand, because that's the type of user account we've had for years.

A cloud account exists on the internet - more specifically on servers owned by Microsoft, Google or Apple, for example. Because it exists on the internet, you can sign in to a cloud account from any computer in the world that has an internet connection. This, too, is straightforward.

Now it starts to get interesting:

To sign in to your Microsoft account, go to the Microsoft Account log in page on the internet and enter your Microsoft account username and password:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/account

The thing is ... that's not the only way to sign in to your Microsoft account online. If you want to use any of the features of your Microsoft account - OneDrive, Office 365, Outlook.com, etc. - you have to sign in to that feature but you're actually signing in to your Microsoft account. You may not even be asked for your Microsoft account username and password (collectively known as credentials) because once you sign in to your Microsoft account in one place, you remain signed in everywhere until you sign out.

Here's where it gets the trickiest:

You can sign in to Windows 10 with a Microsoft account, but that's really just marketing. Your Windows 10 Microsoft account is a local account like any other local account on your computer, except that it signs you in to your Microsoft account at the same (because you're signing in with your Microsoft account credentials,) so you can use all the features of your Microsoft account without signing in again.

But the truth is ... you can use all the features of your Microsoft account even from a local account. All you have to do is to open a web browser and sign in to your Microsoft account from its own sign in page or by signing in to any Microsoft account feature - like this community forum for example.

Microsoft fashioned their cloud account this way - I believe - because they are trying to transition us into using our Microsoft accounts exclusively. This is how a Google account worked from the very beginning; it's always been a cloud account only - nothing stored on your computer. (True, it's possible to store some of your Google account content on your own computer, but that's an exception.)

S and S:  That's a good explanation.  Thank you!  Unfortunately, having "things done for me" and "hiding them" is crazy-making.  

One of my clients uses "company" Microsoft Accounts with multiple Office licenses attached.  I don't know what they bought or how this works and don't really care.  But these licenses are used on multiple computers; or perhaps, the same username is used to license Office on multiple computers is all. So, each license is associated with one of but a few Microsoft account usernames.  All of the computers are logged in with strictly local accounts.  So, what does this do when one of them opens Word?  Something?  Nothing?  Maybe something and maybe not?  I imagine that OneDrive would be interesting.....

I am really gun shy because of an experience I had recently:

A client bought a new computer.

They had a trial version of Office.

And, the user login already set up when I got there was a Microsoft login - so they already did have an account.

Then, I went to pay for an Office license for them.

I couldn't do it............

I think I created a local user login.

Still no help.

After hours on the phone with Microsoft the last person I talked to was able to explain the problem:

They had NO credit card assigned to their Microsoft Account!!

I don't know how they avoided doing that in the first place.  I imagine it must be easy to avoid.

Finding it as the root cause of my trouble was very difficult.

With some work over the phone, I was able to get their credit card lined up in their Microsoft Account.

Once this was done then getting the license paid for was easy.

The experience was NOT an easy one.

But, I digress.

When I was working on the current computer, I wanted to provide some feedback.

I believe that I clicked on a link provided and ended up with Feedback Hub.

I entered all the information and then was given 3 choices.

The first choice was to log in with a Microsoft Account so I could get responses, etc.  I thought that might be a good idea.  But now I was stuck with knowing if that would mess up the computer owner's setup.  So, I took an option that didn't require that step.

I now understand that logging in would have created a universal logged-in instance for whatever of *my* accounts I used. 

I see no harm to me in doing that.

It would not have messed up the computer owner's setup.(?)

That would have been fine and I suppose I could have ended up in a useful dialog.  

Thank you for improving my understanding of how this works!!

I don't know how organization-level accounts work for Office, because I've never had to administer one.

For Windows, it's pretty straightforward. Organizations have staff coming and going all the time, so it would be ridiculous to have to purchase a new copy of Windows every time you hire someone, and then what happens to their copy of Windows when they leave?

Instead, organizations buy Windows licenses in bulk, and activate each license in the name of the organization. Internally, they allocate individual copies of Windows to specific people, but legally, all the licenses belong to the organization. This way, if someone leaves, you just allocate their Windows license to someone new.

Organization-level Windows accounts should be local accounts. Organizations need to control who has access to their information, so you wouldn't want staffers to have free access to your corporate data from anywhere in the world.