What are the repercussions of changing the password on a Microsoft Account?

Question

I sign into Windows 8 with the same account as on my Windows Phone. I read the warnings that if I renamed my account to an outlook.com one, that I would have to do a hard reset on my phone and set it up again, from scratch. Are the consequences of changing just the password as severe, or will it "just work"?

Answer 1

Changing the ID to one with a new domain (outlook.com) will not "just work", as you are changing your ID, but you definitely won't need to reinstall windows 8 from scratch.

In that case, you'd have to add your new ID as a new user with administrator rights before making the switch, and when done you could login with the migrated user.

You would lose all of the settings of the previous user, so make sure to move anything you might want out of your user folder first.

However, changing only the password just means than you need to be online for the first time afterwards to login with the new password, to let windows cache it.
Afterwards, you will have the new password even offline.

Answer 2

If you use a Microsoft Account to sign in to Windows 8, changing your Microsoft Account password will also change the password you use to log into your computer.

This also implies that if you forget the password for your PC, you can reset it on the web.

Answer 3

To quote the answer on the Stack Exchange site for Windows Phone

You just have to go into the settings of your phone and change the password and everything will work like a charm

Answer 4

Changing the ID means you will have to add the new ID as an administrator since for the application its just like a new user. If that is the case it means its a totally new set of user data specific to your previous ID .