HELP!! Microsoft Account ADVICE needed and WARNING to others

I've just bought a new PC and was going through the process of setting it up when I received a prompt to start a Microsoft Account. I just assumed it was part of the setting up process and duly signed up. Then I went to my emails and I saw there were two login boxes instead of the usual one. I picked one of the boxes at random and entered my usual password and it didn't work, so on a hunch I entered my newly acquired Microsoft Account and hey presto it opened my emails. Imagine my shock and horror when I found my email inbox completely empty of emails, (over 100 going back six years) apart from two which surprise surprise were from Microsoft newly arrived. I desperately searched my Deleted box for all my emails and they weren't there either and I went into a cold sweat. I then went to the retrieve deleted emails option and thankfully they were there. I then had to go through the long and laborious process of retrieving each one.

I've looked into this Microsoft Account and it transpires it is the new name for Windows Live Messenger. Had I known this I would never have signed up. I now want to delete my Windows Account so my question is are there any repercussions. Will I be punished for deserting them and leaving them like a woman scorned?

What makes me worry about this is first the email thing. If they can delete all my emails what else can they do?
I've also gone on to their site to look at the process and there seems to be a bit of scaremongering going on before telling me how to leave them. They say i'll lose the email account associated with the account and I won't be able to use Outlook or Office 365.

The email account isn't @hotmail, @outlook, @msn or at [MENTION=27918]Liv[/MENTION]e so it says it won't affect me but after what happened to all my emails I don't entirely trust them.
I also discovered that I could still use my original email password by going to the second login box. By then I had already retrieved all my deleted emails, but this got me thinking. If I had used this login to access my emails at first instead of the other one would I have still discovered all my emails had been deleted from my inbox?

Any advice would be appreciated. Here's the link to the Microsoft Account closure information which is a bit scaremongery as I said.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/closing-microsoft-account

On a completely unrelated topic, windows 7 updates seems to have stalled. Mine has been searching for updates for hours and doesn't seem to find anything (or tell me there is error). It's as if its in a never-ending loop

Advice for the future, buy yourself a domain from someone like 123-reg for a couple of quid a year and setup an email address such as marlowe@<yourdomain.co.uk> which forwards to TWO gmail accounts, one of which is purely a backup.
Oh, and never trust microsoft not to **** you over claiming they're enhancing your experience.

Microsoft are an absolute JOKE. Never trust them with ANYTHING.

If you do HAVE to use Windows then make sure you do so at a bare bones level so it doesn't have access to everything. You can fire up a browser window to get into your emails, preferably an incognito window at that.

Everything Windows prompts you to do should be avoided

I have only just learned have two email address's with two diferent companies

lesson here, no matter who its from or what its for, never setup accounts or give over details unless you initiated the process (so went to destination with information about what you are doing or want). this could has easily been a malware, which frankly is what Windows has become with their insistance to update and "telemetry" information on everything you do being sent back.

Shut down and then restart.Search for Microsoft Update Troubleshooter and run it.It's a problem with SP1 I think,and it worked for me.
For Cheshire Cat btw

Microshaft at its finest again.
All hail Linux.....or anything that isn't windoze

You should turn off all the tracking shit that have on by default as well!

The microsoft account is not windows live messenger. Your windows account is a profile that can be used on all microsoft products (one drive for cloud storage, xbox, phones, the windows shop for apps and programmes, Office 365 etc). Creating a microsoft account shouldn't delete all your emails.

What do you mean you tried to sign in to your emails? Do you mean on the the email app on your computer? In which case, as a new computer you'd have to link it to your old email account to find your emails. Sync your account to the new computer (help).

Or do you mean online? If you signed in online with the new account, your old emails won't be there because you're not accessing that account. You'd need to log out and sign in with your old details (maybe try the other sign in box?).

Your old email account should still exist.

But also this:

deletebeepbeepbeep said:

You should turn off all the tracking shit that have on by default as well!

Click to expand...

When you started up the computer it should have given you the option to not track activity, personalise ads, etc.