Windows 8 is going to be a major disruption to what we know and expect from the traditional PC. Integration, cross platform functionality and many other ideas will finally land in the desktop experience.
Microsoft has just penned a new blog post that talks about signing in to Windows 8 with a Windows Live ID. The new post goes into greater detail about how you can now roam with your Windows Live ID. The basic idea is that if you sign into another machine and use your Windows Live ID, your settings will come with you.
Signing in with an ID allows you to:
- Associate the most commonly used Windows settings with your user account. Saved settings are available when you sign in to your account on any Windows 8 PC. Your PC will be set up just the way you are used to!
- Easily reacquire your Metro style apps on multiple Windows 8 PCs. The app’s settings and last-used state persist across all your Windows 8 PCs.
- Save sign-in credentials for the different apps and websites you use and easily get back into them without having to enter credentials every time.
- Automatically sign in to apps and services that use Windows Live ID for authentication.
The idea is simple, go to another machine, use your Live ID to login and your basic settings will come with you. This should help those who frequently use many machines and prefer to have their own settings with them at all times of the day. There is a lot of information on how this entire process works, including security concerns, that can be read on the Windows 8 blog.
Like all of us, you probably spend a significant amount of time personalizing your Windows experience to reflect your style, your life, and how you use your PC. We all know how frustrating it is when all that work is lost when you buy a new PC or use a different one (or just reformat your hard drive). With Windows 8, we are working to change that—you will be able to have your personal Windows experience on any Windows 8 PC you sign in to with your Windows Live ID. Settings such as your lock screen picture, desktop background, user tile, browser favorites and history, spell check dictionaries, Explorer settings, mouse settings, and accessibility settings, among many others are now associated with your Windows 8 account and stored in the cloud. They are kept in sync and come down to each machine you use as they are changed or updated.
If you are tired of having to personalize all of the PCs that you use, this should be a welcome feature to the Windows platform. This is just one of the many new features that will be coming to Windows 8 and expect Microsoft to announce many more over the coming months.
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