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Comment by PerfectElement | Hacker News Reader

A few weeks ago I got a new laptop and downloaded a new version of Skype. It forced me to use a Microsoft account and I could not use my existing Skype name, which had all my contacts. There was no apparent way to move my contacts. I don't care that much about UI changes, but preventing me from using the account that I have been using for 10+ years is ridiculous.

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On the general Microsoft account issue, my Skype account I had for 10+ years also became inaccessable after a random criminal linked their Microsoft account to my Skype account to make fraudulent transactions. After trying to get my skype account back using the account recovery form, I realized that even though I should have had enough answers to successfully recover the account that it was failing probably because all the answers were now being checked against the criminal’s Microsoft account instead of my Skype account.

No amount of customer support chatting or Microsoft supoort calling could get that account back, or even get someone to investigate the fraud. I suppose that Skype makes money off these transactions so why bother to stop it.

I've had more success chatting with our houseplants than chatting with Skype support. At least the plants grow faster when you talk to them.

I hope you live in a free state like California with your "talking houseplants".

Skype accounts are Microsoft accounts. That's why the sign in page says "email, phone, or skype." But Microsoft did a spam purge as well, that's why Skype is usable again. If your Skype account was compromised and being used to send spam, it's probably gone for good.

I installed Windows 10 on my machine a couple of weeks ago, and downloaded the latest version of Skype. I could still log in with my 10 year old account, but I couldn't recover my chat history (even though I have the actual appdata dir that contains the chat data)

That's because the electron app doesn't use the same files for your chat history. You have to use Skype Classic for that.

You can still install the latest 7.41.0.101 version of the classic Skype on a Windows 7 or newer system using one of these links:

https://go.skype.com/classic.skype

http://download.skype.com/msi/SkypeSetup_7.41.0.101.msi

https://download.skype.com/5d7ac191986ccb485223c4e4e9e3e4ce/...

thank you so much, this is exactly what I wanted

Once old Skype account is connected with Microsoft Account it can't be separated; if I'm not mistaken it was possible to disconnect both shortly before MSN/WL Messenger was terminated completely.

I did log into Skype recently on my old forgotten accounts - one I was using on daily basis and other I tried to delete because of unfortunate username (no response of course happened from Skype back then; leaving account to rotten for period of over 365 days didn't do a thing). Both were working without problems (tho, chat history was gone as they announced), not connected with any Microsoft Accounts.

And honestly, MSN Messenger was the best service MS provided - sans that short time when it was the annoying Windows Messenger bundled with XP

I got the prompt to "convert" my legacy Skype account to a Live account a few years back. Guess what? I ended up with 2 accounts. After a while of nobody being able to find me (constantly adding the old account, which didn't work anymore, because it was the only one that showed up in the search) I got in touch with Microsoft support. Once I proved my identity they agreed to delete the old account.

...Except that was around 2 years ago and it still exists - and it's still the only one that comes up when you search Skype for my name.

Oh, and I still can't log in to it, either.

Was this on the Mac because I didn't have this issue and I just got a new Mac in August. Just FWIW -- these days a lot of software is inconsistent.

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