I’m having a great deal of fun this morning trying to do something really simple; Change my Windows Live ID login password; Most of our clients probably use one to access Windows Live Messenger, and if you are unfortunate enough to use Hotmail, the same ID works there too.

We also use them to login for all sorts of Microsoft resources, so it’s very important to us to keep our ID’s secure, which is why this morning I find myself trying to change the password;

You’d think that would be easy right? Wrong. Logging in at live.com and there appears to be no account management going on there, so I searched for answers; One suggested I login to Hotmail and do it there, but I don’t use Hotmail, so that’s no good. A Microsoft support document suggested I have to login at zune.net. but that site is not available in Australia.

There doesn’t appear to be anywhere within Live Messenger to change the password either; I looked up my profile from within Live Messenger, but that loaded in my default browser firefox and of course Microsoft services don’t play nice in other peoples sand boxes, so I had to load it in IE; After another click or two I ended up at home.live.com, and from there, found the OPTIONS > MORE OPTIONS option, and then found a way to change my password.

Then, I find my password can only be 16 characters long. As I wanted a much longer one, this frustrates me too.

Sheesh; Lets start by putting the option in the Live Messenger GUI please guys! Improve the password option to allow for many more characters, and update your knowledge base article 935255 to be more helpful!