Microsoft creates Skype Accounts automatically

microsoft started to make automatically new Skype accounts on your existing msn.com,hotmail.com etc e-mails a few weeks now.for example,my e-mail is not linked or created and i sigh in one day and i saw that a Skype account has been automatically created and linked with my e-mail.i dont know what microsoft is going to do…anyway.

Using the web-based Skype built-in to Outlook.com or using the new Messaging app in Windows 10 (build 10586 or above) will cause it to make one of the live:name_number Skype accounts automatically as both of these are Skype clients and operate using Skype accounts, not a Messenger client.

However, you can still link another existing Skype account to your Microsoft account and it will simply replace the generated live: Skype account with your existing one. Of course any additions made to that generated Skype account get deleted (contacts you’ve added, conversation history, etc.).

Is there any Windows Live/MSN/Microsoft properties that still have the old style Web Messenger anywhere? The last holdout I knew of was OneDrive and it now has Skype instead.

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UPDATE: now click ‘‘edit profile’’ and then ‘‘messenger profile’’ to get the classic old style Web Messenger

UPDATE:as of april 2016, old style web messenger has been gone

It seems they are one step closer to the end of the old service/protocol. :frowning2:

Worse, if you buy Skype credit, Microsoft will often put it into your live:[name] account instead of your regular Skype account, so you won’t be able to use the credit. To get around this, open a browser you don’t normally use, log in to your live:[name] Skype account using your email address, and add your real account to its contacts. Then give the credit to your real account. After this, you can unlink your live:name account from your Hotmail or Outlook account and then it will be deleted.

Source: 45 minutes’ chat with a Microsoft tech.

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It sounds like they’re continuing a long standing tradition of awful billing systems for buying “phone” credit. If you ever had the misfortune of trying to pay for use of Messenger’s VoIP to PSTN services there were unending failures and no customer support on this feature for assistance.

For those unfamiliar, the best part was how they added the feature only to drop it and then try again. The first was .NET Voice Services (Net2Phone/iConnectHere/KT/Primus/CallServe/British Telecom) and then discontinued for Windows Live Call (Telefonica/NTT/LG Dacom/Chief Telecom/Bell Canada), which then itself was discontinued. Although I think some of the companies did try to issue credit, I believe most people lost their credit when they discontinued both.