So you originally used a Live email login on the new laptop & cant change it to your nieces live email account .. is that what you are saying ?

You might want to visit and tell your problem at...
www.eightforums.com and
answers.microsoft.com

Add/Remove an account to your Microsoft account
Usually you can do most anything to your account & change login, add additional email names, etc. at...
https://account.microsoft.com

Here is a link that might be useful: enhanced account recovery and security features

This post was edited by mikie on Thu, Oct 31, 13 at 20:18

Is there a recovery partition on this computer?

Try Mikie's ideas first as he seems to have a good grasp of Windows 8 and it's peculiarities. Failing that re-install windows from the recovery partition.

As your computer is a factory build you should have no issues re-installing. Mine is a self build and Microsoft gave me a good run around and wanted me to buy another copy of Windows. Told them that was not happening and after much discussion we got it sorted out but it did lower my opinion of MS more than a little bit.

Do not throw the computer out!

The tech who took over the laptop last Wednesday said there is no recovery partition. From what I was told today, it appears that same tech, or the one last Thursday, managed to delete the administrator account on the laptop.

Thanks for the tips. The laptop is history. I'm not wasting any more time on it. It's not worth all the trouble...

It's under warrantee - send it back they will reload it.. or simplier, oems will sell you the oem restore discs for a modest amount usually.

Or send it to me, I'll pay the freight :)

Good thinking Mikie :~)

Sad that someone has to go through so much hassle.

I'm thinking it's sad someone is willing to give up so easily and throw away $$$$. But then, I've always been frugal, and if something really stumps me, I'll put it aside for a while and later I may be able to solve my problem(s).

It was a big chunk of change. But I'm glad the problem is gone. Dag nab it, it was a birthday gift to myself. I didn't expect having to spend hours and hours trying to set up a brand new laptop. It was meant to be fun, not more work.
That's why I was finally going to give it to my niece.

I replaced the old one today with a Lenovo Yoga 2. What a difference. It came with Win 8.1. already installed. The whole set up took about 20 minutes. So far I think I'm gonna love it.

It was a big chunk of change. But I'm glad the problem is gone. Dag nab it, it was a birthday gift to myself. I didn't expect having to spend hours and hours trying to set up a brand new laptop. It was meant to be fun, not more work.
That's why I was finally going to give it to my niece.

I replaced the old one today with a Lenovo Yoga 2. What a difference. It came with Win 8.1. already installed. The whole set up took about 20 minutes. So far I think I'm gonna love it.

I read this thread because tonight my Firefox browser was taken over by something, a full width banner came up and gave me one option...go to "the store" and get a free Windows 8.1. I have Window 8.0 on a computer that must be about 6 months old.

I could not get out, could not close the browser.. so I held the power button off until the computer shut down. When I booted again and went to the browser the banner again came up but this time I was offered "remind me later" which I clicked on.

Is this from Microsoft? If yes, hope so too, why isn't MS handling with the standard update?

"why isn't MS handling with the standard update?"

"Microsoft first announced that the next version of Windows would include its own digital distribution service, Windows Store, at its presentation during Build on September 13, 2011."

"Further details announced during the conference revealed that the store would be able to hold listings for both certified Windows applications, and "Metro-style apps" a new type of application primarily optimized for use on touchscreen devices running Windows 8 and Windows RT. For consumer-oriented versions of Windows 8, Windows Store is intended to be the only way to obtain apps."

I got the same banner a few minutes ago. I don't intend to up date to 8.1. Read about it and the classic shell sounded better. I couldn't get rid of the banner so I clicked on the store then closed it.

Thanks, sounds like a better method, but I wasn't aware/sure the banner was from MS, not a malware artist.

My Gateway Laptop (well W8) seems rather forgiving, I've forced the computer off with the power switch more than once. It always boot up when I next turn the power on.. seems to take a little bit longer.

Something else, I seem to have problems with typed character display when typing into a browser, like now typing into this thread. There is no noticeable delay now, maybe it is site dependent, or at least not a problem in W8 or my laptop All I do on this machine is email and browse.. a total crash would not lose important data.

I will hold off on W8.1 for a while, watch and see. I will use you method, Emma,got o store and close the store.

It has not come back either. I tried to watch for the update that would send me to the store for W 8.1, but missed it I guess.

Just another follow up to my original post. The Lenovo Yoga 2 with 8.1 was returned for a refund today. After about 4 hours on the phone to (mainly) Microsoft and also to Lenovo, I was never able to activate Microsoft Office. Office had come preloaded on the laptop. I had purchased an activation card, which was unopened and unused until this morning.

When I tried to activate Office I was taken to a log-in web page that wanted me to log in - it gave me several choices - but nothing related to my Microsoft.com account. I called Microsoft, and without going into all the gory details, they took over the laptop remotely, and they weren't able to activate Office either. I called Lenovo again, but they wouldn't help because it was a Microsoft software problem.

I was able to delete or deactivate the Microsoft.com account, but it took a call to Microsoft, and I was told it would take 30 days for it to deactivate, and not to log into it during that time. Of course, the other side of the coin is that I couldn't set the laptop back to factory specs before returning it...Even with Lenovo's tech on the phone we couldn't get the laptop reset button to work....

I give up. I don't have unlimited amounts of time to set up a brand new laptop. Windows8 has been a frustrating experience and a huge waste of time.

This is scary! I have a Win 8 laptop (Dell) that I bought for my husband back in August. He tried using it once and declared it a loser! At 82 he couldn't figure out how to use it and I didn't help. I kept saying I'll work on it when I have time. It got stuck in a closet and was forgotten. I know the Dell warrany is running out (maybe this month), so I will start it up tomorrow.

This is a horror story. Hald, I can't believe you threw out a laptop because you couldn't get anyone to help. I think the computer manufacturer should be responsible.

Three years ago, I screwed up my XP desktop by changing some setting which locked me out and rendered the computer useless. I called Dell (was long out of warranty), so they said it was a MS problem and call them. I did and got no help whatsoever after multiple calls.

I called Dell back late at night and got a guy in Texas (true) who spent hours with me getting the computer up and running. He actually loaded a new Windows version (commercial) as my disks would not load because the computer was locked.

Long and short, we watched the sun rise and he not only got the machine running, but gave me Office and a Powerpoint download because the computer wouldn't take mine.

I would have spent the night on the phone with Lenovo and demanded they fix the problem. Too bad its MS, they all sell their machines with Windows.

I still can't believe you threw out a new laptop. Now I'm so afraid to try to get my husbands gift up and running. I better get going. I promise you...I won't be throwing it in the garbage!

Jane

It is silly to throw it away, some one out there could have used it and rebuilt it or something. I hate W8, I tried it twice and gave up. I downloaded Classic shell and it is okay now. It is so fast!

I would never buy a dell/custom PC, wouldn't know what to tell them I wanted and I have heard to many negatived things like "dell hell". I buy a ready made PC at best buy and I can take it back if I don't like it. I have never had to do that.

I didn't have any special problems turning up my Gateway Laptop with W8 a few months back. The biggest problems I had was learning (trial and error) to make one of the W8 tiles a start for Firefox (browser). When this is done the desktop converts to a W7 look. Yea, there's a lto of other "goodies" and I slowly started using them.

In spite of the fact that it sometimes facilitates my crashing a dialog via my browser I love the "smart" touch pad. I find it hard using W7 laptop not being able to scroll using two fingers on the touch pad - I guess that's the feature I use the most.

The last and only time I was ready to throw out a new notebook, an Acer, was when I couldn't get Vista to set up an network interface (best I can recall, these years later). But as I had purchased it from Walmart I just took it back and said I didn't want it - they refunded my purchase price. I found a demo laptop with XP and purchased it - that was my first Gateway.

I am always amazed at the negativity about Dell computers. Thats all we've ever bought, except for a little HP netbook. All our computers are still running, never had mechanical/hardware problems with any of them. We have 2 desktops which are 8 yrs old which still work fine. My desktop is 6yrs and hubbies laptop is 6 yrs also. The rest are laptops which are Win 7 and now Win8.

Kept going back to Dell because they were so reliable. Have used their tech support over the years and I wouldn't say it was any worse than any other company. I always got help. I guess if we ever had some major problem we would have bought other companies, but we never did.

Jane

You've had good experiences with Dell, that's a reason to stick with them. Otherwise, a good reason to try something else is that Dell's market reputation has plummeted in the last 5 years. Quality gripes, service and tech support gripes, etc, are frequently cited. Dell products are often ranked lower than products from other companies.

Compared to the old days, most PC "manufacturers" do little more than assemble components and add software all produced by others, so that quality control and customer policies are all that may differ from one brand to another. Most use mostly the same parts from the same sources.

My own favorite brand is Lenovo, especially their Think Pad line of laptops. Very reliable.

Jane, when I first got Windows 8, I learned to move the 'Desktop' tile to the first position and I learned to go into the Gateway power management folder (I have almost the same laptop that JerryNJ got) to find the power button and pin it to the task bar.

After I upgraded to Win 8.1, the computer automatically loads my desktop.

To the OP, sorry that you couldn't make it work for you.

I started out with Compaq, then a Sony Viao, from then on it was Hp until I bought this Acer laptop. They were all good except the first one and that was a user problem not the product. Dell is probably good also, the negativity I mentioned was their tech support. I had a problem with one of my HP's my fault again because I didn't read the paper work well enough. HP Charged me $99. for an extended warranty of a year and guaranteed to fix it or replace it with one of equal value.

I've had 'em all (or almost), including a Thinkpad when it was IBM (1998). We have one Dell desk top, must be 7 or 8 years old, runs XP Media or some extra on XP. I even had an AT&T laptop in about 1992, I was working for AT&T at the time ; )

I haven't had much hardware trouble.. a couple of hard drives went flaky, but didn't do a hard crash, I was able to save needed data. One was in an HP, the other in a Gateway. I didn't replace the Gateway hard drive... and it started working after I replaced it with a Toshiba. I used that Gateway as the under the couch laptop until I stepped on it one night. That's when the second, and current W8, Gateway came into my life.

I remain shy about W8.1, don't know what I'll do, but I no longer get the interrupts asking me to go to the store. I think I am still getting W8 updates/fixes, sound right?

I remain amazed how reliable such a complicated device is.

In most respects both the laptops I tried were pretty awesome. The Lenovo Yoga 2 was especially awesome; the touchscreen tablet mode was the best I've ever seen.
What I figure is that there must be something very messed up with the Microsoft account. My problems all had to do with aspects of it. I'm hoping when I try a new laptop again that a new account will solve all the problems. Microsoft office will be a download next time, no activation cards for me...remember office was a chunk of change too.
So I'm not too concerned about trying Win8 again, just a bit disappointed that I'll have to wait at least a month.

As for the new OS, I'd still like to learn it. I doubt many people will have problems like mine. I think Microsoft got a lot of things right with the OS.

Jerry, I haven't had anymore prompts after I clicked on store.

Hald, it seems to take longer to do something with windows 8 than my windows 7. That might be different if I stuck with it, but I find my patience isn't aging as well I am. LOL

This post was edited by EmmaR on Mon, Nov 11, 13 at 18:26

Lots of information about Windows 8

Upgrading to Win8.1 without an MS account

More at link.

Here is a link that might be useful: windows-8-1