Windows 8 In Depth

Microsoft Versus Local Accounts

On a computer that has Internet access, you can create two types of user accounts: Microsoft accounts and local accounts. A local account is what we had in previous versions of Windows. You can assign a logon name and password. Information about each account stays on the computer. If you set up accounts for yourself on two different computers, your password on the two machines would not necessarily be the same, your individual preferences would have to be set up separately on both computers, and so on.

If you use a Microsoft account (formerly called a Windows Live account) to sign on to Windows 8, Windows uses Microsoft’s online services to securely back up certain information from the account to Microsoft’s servers ...