The twists and turns of Office Fast Account Switching

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ISSUE 19.20 • 2022-05-16 MICROSOFT 365 By Peter Deegan Fast Account Switching lets you quickly “change hats” between work, home, and other Microsoft a
[See the full post at: The twists and turns of Office Fast Account Switching]

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Lars220, abbodi86

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Peter Deegan – very interesting and helpful – thanks.

Questions about how this affects two accounts’ uses of OneDrive on the same PC in a particular scenario:

My Daughter’s PC has two PC user log-ons – Daughter and Dad (me).  On her PC, I can access it remotely and Log On to my user account to do updates, fix problems, etc., on the PC, leaving her user account and all her stuff alone.

Now, our family has MS 365 Family (six users).  On Daughter’s PC, when she logs on as herself, she has immediate access to her MS 365 Family account and all her docs in her OneDrive, mostly in her Documents and Desktop folders.

When I access and log on to the same PC as myself, I have immediate access to my MS 365 Family account and all my docs although I now don’t remember whether or not they appear in any folders.

1. So – what happens if I access and log on to this PC as me, open Word, but then switch from my MS Family 365 account to Daughter’s?
2. Among other things – does the PC now re-download Daughter’s documents into my Documents or Desktop folders?
3. What other confusing things might happen?
4. Do your answers change if
   1. some of Daughter’s OneDrive folders are set to “Always leave a copy on this PC”?
   2. some of my OneDrive folders are set to “Always leave a copy on this PC”?

Interested in everyone’s thoughts.

Thanks.

 

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Windows PC login and OneDrive syncing is separate from the Office/Microsoft 365 login — each login can be the same or different Microsoft accounts.

> So – what happens if I access and log on to this PC as me, open Word, but then switch from my MS Family 365 account to Daughter’s?

You can only do that if you can login to your daughter’s Microsoft account (in other words have her password and, hopefully, two-factor access).  The fact that you’re on a shared PC isn’t relevant.

> Among other things – does the PC now re-download Daughter’s documents into my Documents or Desktop folders?

No — the OneDrive sync is usually tied to the PC login’s Microsoft account.  The Office login is separate.  The Office login means you can access the OneDrive etc cloud storage directly for the current Office user (i.e without local syncing).

>some of Daughter’s OneDrive folders are set to “Always leave a copy on this PC”?
>some of my OneDrive folders are set to “Always leave a copy on this PC”?

Again, that’s done at the PC level not in Office.  Normally each Windows users folders are not accessible to other users on the same computer (excepting Admins, of course) unless the folder permissions are changed.

Hope that helps,

Peter Deegan

 

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This article is SO timely for me – much appreciated.

“In the beginning,” I had an Office 365 account, a OneDrive account, and four email addresses (personal, work, hobby, and public).  The Office 365 and the OneDrive were connected to my public email address, and everything seemed to work fine (most of the time).

Then I began serving on a board that set up its own sharepoint account using my work email address.  Switching logins between my public profile and my work profile was a pain at first, but I got used to it.

Recently I began employment with an organization that also has its own server and sharepoint, and utilizes Office on the Web as the default app for handling documents.  They assigned me a organization-specific email address, and set me up with their OneDrive account.  I use my own laptop there, which also has access to my public and work OneDrive accounts (my desktop at home has only public and work, not the new organization).  And unfortunately, much of the material in my public OneDrive account is needed for my work with the new organization.

The work (Board) accounts are not a problem, since I rarely access them.  The problem is managing (juggling?) my public and organizational accounts – specifically,

• not being able to share organizational documents as email attachments with people outside the organization’s account (which is a frequent need), consequently requiring me to save those docs to my laptop’s hard drive  in order to attach them;
• Being unable to edit organizational docs using the online apps (b/c the online apps lack SO much functionality), so therefor having to download copies to may laptop – but then I lose the “live” updating, which is a problem if someone else is editing that doc at the same time.

To be honest, I’m so confused at this point that I’m not even sure what my question is. I’m very grateful for your article, though I’m afraid that by the time I got to the end, I found myself significantly more aware of the complexities involved, but without any clear idea of a path forward.  I suppose my basic questions – given my setup are :

• what’s the best way to work on organizational documents?
• what’s the best way to save and share organizational documents?
• what’s the best way to use documents from my public OneDrive account in my organization?

I know there are some folks who thrive on answering questions like these, and if you’re one of them, then I’m deeply grateful for your time.  But if you’re not, please don’t trouble yourself  – thanks.

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• not being able to share organizational documents as email attachments with people outside the organization’s account (which is a frequent need), consequently requiring me to save those docs to my laptop’s hard drive  in order to attach them;

That’s an issue for your organizations IT department. If sharing documents with ‘outsiders’ is a common need, they should provide for that in some way.

• Being unable to edit organizational docs using the online apps (b/c the online apps lack SO much functionality), so therefor having to download copies to may laptop – but then I lose the “live” updating, which is a problem if someone else is editing that doc at the same time.

You do NOT have to download to edit, in fact you should not if you want live updating.  Live editing of online documents does NOT need the browser based apps.
Use Office 365 desktop apps and open the OneDrive/Sharepoint folder then file.  Ignore the synced copy on a local computer and open directly.  See https://office-watch.com/2022/two-ways-to-open-a-onedrive-document-in-microsoft-office/

• what’s the best way to work on organizational documents?

Where possible (i.e. connected to the Internet) open documents directly from OneDrive/SharePoint.

• what’s the best way to save and share organizational documents?

Ask your IT ‘gods’ <g>.
Hope that helps a little …

Peter Deegan

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