Office 365 Family is a fantastic subscription that allows you to share Microsoft Office applications and services with multiple people. A common scenario arises when you get a new computer and want to extend the benefits of your Office 365 Family subscription to other members of your household, especially when replacing older machines. Many users find themselves puzzled when setting up new devices and aiming to share Office 365 Family without creating unnecessary Microsoft accounts for everyone. This guide will clarify how to navigate this process smoothly, focusing on setting up user accounts and sharing your Office 365 Family subscription effectively.
When you first boot up a new Windows computer, the setup process often prompts you to create or sign in with a Microsoft account. This is perfectly normal, and for the person who purchased Office 365 Family, using their Microsoft account is the initial step to activate the subscription on that machine. However, when setting up the computer for another family member, like your wife replacing her old Windows 7 PC, you might hesitate to use your own Microsoft account again. The goal is usually to give each user their own separate user profile, personal files, and access to the shared Office 365 Family benefits, all while minimizing the creation of extra Microsoft accounts.
Let’s consider the situation where you want to set up a new computer for your wife. After the initial setup where you might have used your Microsoft account, you now want to create a separate user account for her. Windows offers options to “Add a family member” or “Add someone else” in the ‘Family & other users’ settings. Navigating these choices can be confusing.
If you choose “Add a family member,” the system prompts for an email address and suggests creating a Microsoft account for a child if needed. This path seems to push towards creating more Microsoft accounts, which you’re trying to avoid. On the other hand, “Add someone else” also initially asks for an email or phone number, making it seem like a Microsoft account is mandatory.
However, it’s important to understand that you can create a local account in Windows. A local account is independent of a Microsoft account and resides only on that specific computer. This is precisely what you need to give your wife her own logon profile and directory structure (like C:usersWife) without forcing her to have a separate Microsoft account for just using the computer and Office.
Here’s how you can proceed to add a local account and ensure Office 365 Family is shared:
- Go to Start > Settings > Accounts > Family & other users.
- Click on Add someone else to this PC.
- In the Microsoft account window that pops up, look for the option “I don’t have this person’s sign-in information”. Click on this.
- On the next screen, you’ll see “Create an account”. Instead of entering an email, look for and click on “Add a user without a Microsoft account”. This option is often subtly placed at the bottom.
- Now you can create a local account by entering a username (e.g., your wife’s name), and optionally a password and password hint.
- Click Next and then Finish.
Now, your wife has her own local user account on the computer. To share Office 365 Family with her, you don’t need to link her local account to a Microsoft account directly for the purpose of Office. Office 365 Family sharing is managed through the Microsoft account that holds the subscription.
To share Office 365 Family:
- On your computer (the one used to purchase Office 365 Family), go to your Microsoft account online through a web browser.
- Navigate to the Services & subscriptions section of your Microsoft account dashboard.
- Find your Office 365 Family subscription and look for the Sharing option.
- From there, you can share your subscription by sending an invitation link via email. You can use your wife’s personal email address (it doesn’t have to be a Microsoft account email).
- On your wife’s new computer, after she logs in with her new local account, she can open a web browser and access her email.
- She should find the invitation email from Microsoft. By clicking on the invitation link and following the instructions, she will be able to associate her personal email address with your Office 365 Family subscription. This step might prompt her to create a Microsoft account if she doesn’t have one already, but this Microsoft account is primarily for managing the Office 365 Family access and can be linked to her preferred personal email, not necessarily the local account.
By following these steps, you’ve successfully created a local account for your wife, providing her with a personal computing space, and shared your Office 365 Family subscription with her. This way, you minimize the creation of extra Microsoft accounts while maximizing the benefits of your Office 365 Family subscription across multiple machines in your household. This approach works effectively whether you are using Windows 10 or Windows 11. Remember, managing the sharing of Office 365 Family is handled through the subscription owner’s Microsoft account, and family members can access it on their devices, even if they primarily use local accounts for their day-to-day computer usage.
