I think that one of the coolest things about Windows Phone 7 is how connected the device is to internet services. I will log into the phone once and all my stuff will start appearing. A Windows Phone 7 device comes alive with your information like personal or work email; friends and news feeds from Facebook; pictures from Flickr; business contacts from LinkedIn; and much more. Essentially, your Windows Live ID will be the center of your social connections. My problem is, my Zune account is tied to a different Windows Live ID than my main XBOX Live GamerTag is. I have begun to fix the association, but you can only make one change every 30 days. Do yourself a favor, if you are in the same boat as me switch now. By the way, if you don’t have an Xbox in every room, what are you waiting for?
How I Got Into This Mess
Some of you may be wondering how this happened in the first place so here we go. When I first signed up for Xbox live it was a month before it was released around October 2002. This was before I had a my own domain name, more on that later. At that time my main email address was hosted by AT&T. I associated my AT&T email address at the time with my Xbox Live Account. Fast forward a couple years and around 2006/2007 I purchased my domain and had it hosted by Microsoft for free, the service was called Live Domain.
When I got the domain I wanted to switch the Live ID associated with my Xbox Live account, but at that time it was not allowed. Fast forward a couple years and by this time I owned 3 Xboxes and needed another Xbox Live account. When I created the second XBOX Live account I associated it with a new email address from my domain.
Last year, I purchased a Zune HD. Logically, I associated my Zune account with the Xbox Live account created back in 2002. I do all gaming under the this Xbox Live account. Therefore all my gamer tag and achievements, and friends are all on this account. It does not sound like a problem until I realized the email I want on my Windows Phone 7 device, is tied to my second Xbox Live account, IE the one without my main gamer tag or achievements.
So here is what everything looks like
- MSEMAIL2 – Primary XBOX LIVE ID
- MSEMAIL1- Secondary XBOX LIVE ID
A year ago I bought my Zune. Microsoft was talking about XBOX and Zune integration. So for a seamless transition I used my Primary XBOX Live ID for my Zune Account.
So now here is the new look
- MSEMAIL2 – Primary XBOX LIVE ID – Zune
- MSEMAIL1 – Secondary XBOX LIVE ID
This was fine for most of the last year but now it is time to get ready for Windows Phone 7. If you remember we talked about Facebook and Flickr integration. Guess which account they are setup on? You guessed it, MSEMAIL1- Secondary XBOX LIVE ID. DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!
So here is the new look
- MSEMAIL2 – Primary XBOX LIVE ID – Zune
- MSEMAIL1 – Secondary XBOX LIVE ID – Integrated Services
The Problem
I have been trying to help our readers get ready for Windows Phone 7 over the last few months. And of course I was getting myself ready too. With all the Windows Live account stuff that was explained earlier I now have this dilemma for Windows Phone 7. When I log into my Phone 7 for the first time I would have two choices
- Log in with my main email address MSEMAIL1 and use my Second Xbox Live account on the phone
- Log in with my second email address MSEMAIL2 which gives me the correct XBOX Live account and Zune Account, but all my accounts like Facebook and Flickr are tied to my main email address MSEMAIL1.
Yes this is quite the mess that I have created for myself.
The Solution
So the solution to all this was to create yet a third windows Live ID. Once I did this I moved my second XBOX Live ID to this new account. Remember this was tying up my main email address MSEMAIL1. Now that I have done that, you’d think it was smooth sailing from here, but boy did I get kicked in the junk. Naturally, the next step would be to move my main XBOX live Account, to my main email address, MSEMAIL1, which is tied to my main Windows Live ID. However, since I have already made a change to that account ( Moving my Second XBOX Live Account off ) I now must wait thirty days before I can make a change to it again. First time I cried in a long time! Why? My phone is coming on the November 8th or two weeks, 264 hours, or 15,840 minutes…do I need to continue? The last fix here was I had to create a new Zune Account. And I created it under the MSEMAIL1. That was pretty easy to let go. Luckily I had not gotten a Zune Pass yet.
Everything is in position now, but my account stuff is a waiting game at this point. So I am writing this to encourage you if you have the same boat as me, start your cleanup now. When it is all said and done XBOX LIVE, Zune, and my Primary Email address will all be tied to my main Windows Live ID.
