Linked Live IDs are a little known feature of Windows Live so now that the Windows Live community clubhouse is in full swing I thought I’d draw some attention to them and perhaps suggest some ways that the feature could evolve in the future.
Linking Live IDs enables you to seamlessly switch between them while on Windows Live web properties. Once you have linked together your Live IDs (more on that in a minute) you can easily switch between them using the dropdown menu that appears in the top-right of every Windows Live page. Observe:
This is a very useful feature if you have multiple Live IDs (which many of us do). I also have my mum’s Live ID as one of my Linked Live IDs which means that when I’m giving her IT support on Windows Live over the phone (as I frequently do) then I can pretend that I am logged on as her and see exactly what she is seeing which is very useful indeed.
So, how do you link your Live IDs together? Well, its very simple. You can either select “Link other accounts” from the menu depicted above or simply click on this link: https://account.live.com/managelinks.aspx which (at the time of writing) will take you straight to the page where you manage your Linked Live IDs. Once there the process is self-explanatory.
So that is Linked Live IDs. They’re very useful and I use them a lot however there’s potential for them being used a lot lot more across Windows Live and other Microsoft properties than they are today. Currently Linked Live IDs are only accessible via Windows Live; I can’t, for example, access my Linked Live IDs from www.mesh.com which would be rather handy. Neither can I do the same from any of the Windows Live Essentials tools (i.e. Messenger, Toolbar, Photo Gallery, Mail, Writer).
Moreover I’d like the ability to switch between my Linked Live IDs on my Windows Mobile phone; I have Windows Live for Windows Mobile installed which enables me to get full syncing for my email and log into Messenger, it would be cool if I could simply switch to my Linked Live IDs there as well.
-Jamie
