I should ask my parents...?

[OppfinnarJocke]

Setting up WP8 on my new HTC 8x has been a horrible experience. I have factory reset it three times now, and I've yet to get it to access my email from our university Exchange server, or connect to the university wifi. I could go on with horror stories about this, but just now, the phone recognized (over the mobile network, I guess) some updates for two of the HTC stock apps, so I clicked "Update". Now I get a message about asking my parents(!) to set up something called My Family so I can purchase those apps...

What nonsense is this? First of all, I don't want to purchase anything, it is HTC that pushes those updates upon me. And they are free!
And second, asking my parents...? Come on, what's going on? My parents are 70+ years old, they know nothing about these things.

The phone and the WP8 interface look really slick, but come on... "Kid's Corner" and "ask your parent"?
Do MS really think that they can compete with Apple and Google by focusing on kids and teenagers?

EDIT: OK, so I went to windowsphone.com and signed in there with my live-account, and found My Family. But also there I get a message that "Before you can use My Family, have a parent sign in to this site and set it up". I am over 50 years old, for xx sake... and my live-account has the correct birth date! This is totally wacko!

 

[inteller]

you liveID has been flagged as a underage/child account. What is your age on account.microsoft.com?

 

[michail71]

It will be interesting to see how easy it is to get the age fixed. Doing that on a google account is a nightmare.

 

[OppfinnarJocke]

you liveID has been flagged as a underage/child account. What is your age on account.microsoft.com?

OK, thanks.
I logged in at account.microsoft.com, but the only thing I see there is "No billing information available" and "Did you know…" (with some text beneath). Whatever menu I click at the top, that text is all I get (except for clicking Help, which takes me to the FAQ etc). Especially, the "Profile" menu does not reveal anything about age or anything about me.
Also, I am not interested in giving away any billing information. I exclusively use free apps, nothing else.

 

[OppfinnarJocke]

It will be interesting to see how easy it is to get the age fixed. Doing that on a google account is a nightmare.

I have factory reset the phone four times now... That info, from wherever it came, should go away! Or MS forbid second-hand purchases of phones?

 

[Fleon]

I have factory reset the phone four times now... That info, from wherever it came, should go away! Or MS forbid second-hand purchases of phones?

No, I've had second-hand phones more than once. The problem isn't your phone- the problem is your account settings. Either you are in a family account on Xbox Live or your account was originally listed as a child account when you set it up. I would recommend sending a tweet to @windowsphonesupport or calling Microsoft's Live support phone number and having them look at your account.

This may explain why your exchange settings aren't working, but I sort of doubt that. Do you know what kind of exchange server you have?

 

[OppfinnarJocke]

No, I've had second-hand phones more than once. The problem isn't your phone- the problem is your account settings. Either you are in a family account on Xbox Live or your account was originally listed as a child account when you set it up. I would recommend sending a tweet to @windowsphonesupport or calling Microsoft's Live support phone number and having them look at your account.

No, no Xbox whatever, never used it. I never had any type of MS-account before, the one I have now was created when I tried setting up the phone the first time.

And the account does have my correct birthday, so it cannot be that either, I guess. But then, during all this setting-up-hassle, clicked this and that, here and there, so maybe somewhere some date got input wrongly. This setup is really beginning to be too much, I never had any such problems on any of my Android devices. It's a pity, because I really want this to work...

Why would I need any kind of billing or age info for free apps?

This may explain why your exchange settings aren't working, but I sort of doubt that. Do you know what kind of exchange server you have?

Exchange 2010, if that's what you mean. Microsoft Exchange-version: 14.2.247.0

On a side-note, on What is a Microsoft account? | Windows Phone How-to (United States) I read that "You can use any email address you want to create a Microsoft account.", but this isn't true. The phone only allows me to create an MS-account @live.com. It is not possible to put in anything but a live-com address...

 

[tebugg]

No, no Xbox whatever, never used it. I never had any type of MS-account before, the one I have now was created when I tried setting up the phone the first time.

And the account does have my correct birthday, so it cannot be that either, I guess. But then, during all this setting-up-hassle, clicked this and that, here and there, so maybe somewhere some date got input wrongly. This setup is really beginning to be too much, I never had any such problems on any of my Android devices. It's a pity, because I really want this to work...

Why would I need any kind of billing or age info for free apps?



Exchange 2010, if that's what you mean. Microsoft Exchange-version: 14.2.247.0

On a side-note, on What is a Microsoft account? | Windows Phone How-to (United States) I read that "You can use any email address you want to create a Microsoft account.", but this isn't true. The phone only allows me to create an MS-account @live.com. It is not possible to put in anything but a live-com address...

actually thats not what it's saying. it's saying you can use whatever email you want to make your live account. so when you click on sign up, you have to put in an email address. i use my gmail. that makes my live account. how would you be able to make a live account with whatever@live.com when you dont even have a live account? that doesnt make sense. the phone wants you to include a live account. so i would say go to live.com, delete your old account. make a new one from the website (using whatever email). then reset your phone so no info is in it. then put that new account you made on live.com in your phone.

 

[OppfinnarJocke]

actually thats not what it's saying. it's saying you can use whatever email you want to make your live account.

On the phone I cannot. I *have* to register a whatever@live.com account. It is not possible to create a new account other than of this type.
On the web, I can register an account using any email address. Once that address is registered, I can log in with it on the phone.

how would you be able to make a live account with whatever@live.com when you dont even have a live account? that doesnt make sense. the phone wants you to include a live account.

The phone allows me to create a new, or log in using an existing live-account. If I decide to create a new one, that account cannot have any other address than like whatever@live.com.

so i would say go to live.com, delete your old account. make a new one from the website (using whatever email). then reset your phone so no info is in it. then put that new account you made on live.com in your phone.

Yeah, I did that. Thanks.

 

[tebugg]

Yeah, I did that. Thanks.

sweet. glad to hear you got it sorted out.

 

[OppfinnarJocke]

sweet. glad to hear you got it sorted out.

Well... I no longer have to ask my parents for permission but, still no go with accessing the university Exchange server... it simply does not work, neither when I try to set up an Exchange account, or try to manually setup "Another" account. On the Nexus tablet I just input the email address and the password, and it worked right away. Why can it not work that way on WP8? But I guess that's a question for another thread, later, when I'm out of whining-mode...

 

[paulm187]

Well... I no longer have to ask my parents for permission but, still no go with accessing the university Exchange server... it simply does not work, neither when I try to set up an Exchange account, or try to manually setup "Another" account. On the Nexus tablet I just input the email address and the password, and it worked right away. Why can it not work that way on WP8? But I guess that's a question for another thread, later, when I'm out of whining-mode...

Is the university Exchange server using a self-signed certificate? If so it will not work in Windows Phone, ask your IT to purchase a certificate from a CA. It may work in the Nexus but that's because Android doesn't give a flying fox about security.

 

[OppfinnarJocke]

Is the university Exchange server using a self-signed certificate? If so it will not work in Windows Phone, ask your IT to purchase a certificate from a CA. It may work in the Nexus but that's because Android doesn't give a flying fox about security.

They are using a Thawte certificate, IIUC. Works fine on Android and iOS, I don't really see why it shouldn't work on WP8. Thing is... first time I set the phone up, I managed to (manually) get it to work so far as I could read emails but not send. After the first factory reset I've not gotten it to work at all. Convincing the IT dept to change security certificate I do not see as an option. They do not support WP8, and they all have a long relationship with unix and the kind...

 

[michail71]

They are using a Thawte certificate, IIUC. Works fine on Android and iOS, I don't really see why it shouldn't work on WP8. Thing is... first time I set the phone up, I managed to (manually) get it to work so far as I could read emails but not send. After the first factory reset I've not gotten it to work at all. Convincing the IT dept to change security certificate I do not see as an option. They do not support WP8, and they all have a long relationship with unix and the kind...

Sounds like a lazy IT/untrained/old fashioned IT department. BYOD is becoming the norm these days. At least in the corporate world.

Have you tried the exchange setup with or without WiFi connected to the network Exchange resides on?