Do I really need a Microsoft account in order to access my Windows Phone?

Question

I notice that many Windows Phone manual mention that user need to create a Microsoft Account in order to access their Windows Phone. Is it true? Can't I skip the process of creating the Windows Phone Microsoft account to a later stage?

Answer 1

You can skip it during initial setup and add it later. Skipping this step will limit access to some resources e.g. you can't use the marketplace to install applications.

From the MS page: (highlighting a few key items)

Microsoft account

A Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live ID) lets you do all kinds of things on your phone. Once you sign in, you can:

• Get apps, games, music, and videos from the Store
• Play Xbox games with friends and get your Xbox gamerscore and avatar on your phone
• Use Xbox Music
• Get your Twitter or LinkedIn feeds on your People Hub
• Find, ring, lock, or erase a lost phone
• Create and restore phone backups
• Get personalized suggestions in Local Scout, Music + Videos, and the Store
• Chat using Messenger
• Sync documents with SkyDrive
• Automatically sync your contacts and calendar to Hotmail or Outlook.com

Answer 2

Any email account can be used for a Microsoft account. Shouldn't be a stress point. Just setup your regular email as a Microsoft account and you're good to go. Wikipedia actually talks about the ability to use any email account for a Microsoft account here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_account . Note what this means is you don't have to go get a Hotmail/live/outlook.com account to use a Microsoft account. You can use gmail/{whatever suites you} for your Microsoft account.

Answer 3

yes, windows phone and now windows 8 are very much integrated with the microsoft account. the 322 services which microsoft provides are trying to integrate into one big platform. You will need it to use the marketplace, track your apps, contact list