I bought it before 2011, technically if you lost access to the email you might have lost access to that account years ago without knowing. Even if Microsoft was doing what I think they should, i.e. keep a database of emails and allow people to migrate their account forever, you would still not be able to recover it. Wanting to get an account back from an email you lost access to is like expecting steam to give you all of the keys on your account to add to another if you forgot your password and can’t prove it is you.
Forgot about replying but I’m begging y’all to stop coming up with reasons this isn’t an issue, I have proof of purchase on an old hard drive and my username and password worked til the day I stopped playing. Very quickly googled and support used to help people migrate accounts with no email access, so yes authenticating a login on the server was plenty for them, just not anymore. Comparison doesn’t work
If you lost access to the email and forgot the password you can’t demonstrate to the support person that you are who you say you are. If support people changed your password under those conditions then the system could be abused to reset random people’s passwords. Also you don’t know if your username/password still worked, if those credentials were leaked anyone could have changed your password, and Minecraft old auth system leaked a few username/passwords, I remember having a list of them that I used to introduce people to the game (obviously I never changed anyone’s password, but there are plenty of douchebags out there)
BTW I never said this isn’t an issue, IMO they should keep a DB and allow the migration indefinitely, so it is shitty of them to put a time limit on it. But if you lost access to the email for that account I can understand them not allowing the migration, part of activating an account is usually validating the email address, so whoever owns your email address now gets to own that account.
I bought it before 2011, technically if you lost access to the email you might have lost access to that account years ago without knowing. Even if Microsoft was doing what I think they should, i.e. keep a database of emails and allow people to migrate their account forever, you would still not be able to recover it. Wanting to get an account back from an email you lost access to is like expecting steam to give you all of the keys on your account to add to another if you forgot your password and can’t prove it is you.
Forgot about replying but I’m begging y’all to stop coming up with reasons this isn’t an issue, I have proof of purchase on an old hard drive and my username and password worked til the day I stopped playing. Very quickly googled and support used to help people migrate accounts with no email access, so yes authenticating a login on the server was plenty for them, just not anymore. Comparison doesn’t work
If you lost access to the email and forgot the password you can’t demonstrate to the support person that you are who you say you are. If support people changed your password under those conditions then the system could be abused to reset random people’s passwords. Also you don’t know if your username/password still worked, if those credentials were leaked anyone could have changed your password, and Minecraft old auth system leaked a few username/passwords, I remember having a list of them that I used to introduce people to the game (obviously I never changed anyone’s password, but there are plenty of douchebags out there)
BTW I never said this isn’t an issue, IMO they should keep a DB and allow the migration indefinitely, so it is shitty of them to put a time limit on it. But if you lost access to the email for that account I can understand them not allowing the migration, part of activating an account is usually validating the email address, so whoever owns your email address now gets to own that account.
???
Made-up scenario.
So take MS to small claims court. Get an order for them to restore your account and user name per the licence you presumably still have a copy of