Remove Microsoft Account from PC

I have a simple problem — how do I remove my account from one PC which I am giving away, without removing my Microso Account all together? I have other PCs that use my account. IAN BRIGHTON

Graham Barlow replies: Removing a Microso Account from your PC has no e ect on your Microso Account in general, other than to remove the association between it and your PC. In theory, it should work in the same way as removing a regular user account.

First, we asked Ian who he was passing the PC on to — if you’re selling it or giving it to charity, it’s a good idea to revert it to factory settings rst, using your PC’s recovery partition or disc, and if there’s sensitive data on the drive, use a free program like CCleaner ( www.

piriform.com) to securely wipe the free space so all traces of documents and other data are removed.

Ian was passing the PC on to his grandson, so this isn’t necessary. What you need to do in this instance is rst click ‘Start > Settings > Accounts’. Choose ‘Family & other users’. While it’s tempting to use the option to add a family member, if you’re no longer using the PC, the best thing to do is click ‘Add someone else to this PC’. You can then link this to an existing Microso account or click ‘I don’t have this person’s sign-in information’ followed by ‘Add a user without a Microso account’ to create a local user account. Once created, click the user’s new entry and choose ‘Change account type’ to switch them to administrator. Click ‘OK’. When you’re ready to remove your own account, log o and then log on as the new user. Return to the ‘Settings > Accounts’ screen where you’ll be able to select your own account and remove it (with its les) from your PC, ready to hand over.