OneDrive And Office Login Fails After Hardware Change

Some Windows users are said to experience problems with Microsoft accounts when the system hardware is changed. It is then no longer possible to log in to OneDrive and Office. However, it is possible to regain access.

In one case reported, a user swapped out their Windows machine and was then unable to access their OneDrive account. In addition, the Office applications could no longer be registered. Only an error message appears that the specified account does not match the synchronized account. The reason for this would be that the user would register with an incorrect User Principal Name (UPN). This is a user name and a domain used in Microsoft Active Directory.

Login required with a different UPN

Despite the blocked access, there is a procedure with which the problem can be solved. One user fixed the error by logging out everywhere with their UPN and logging back in with a different previously used username. Since the Redmond company has not yet commented on the subject, the cause of the problem is still unclear. In addition, it remains unclear how many users the bug occurs with.

A security feature may have been active in the background that restricted access to the account after the hardware change and the associated UPN change. Normally, it shouldn’t be a problem to log in to a Microsoft account with different UPNs. A few days earlier, a computer with an unknown IP address is said to have tried to access the affected account.