Top 10 Windows 8 Features #2: The Microsoft Account

"Logging onto" Windows is something a great many users don't do. Let's face it, do we log onto our phones?  If we're okay with our phones pretending they're us while they move around, why would we need to be protective about devices that mostly stay in one place?  This is a point of view that Microsoft, over the course of the next year, may render as antiquated as the dial tone.

An operating system should know its user. This was not a concept Microsoft understood at first. When it formally introduced the "My Documents" folder in Windows 98, folks asked me whether "My" meant "me, the computer" or "me, the user." Then Windows XP introduced the notion of a user profile. At last, multiple people had personal folders that pertained to them, and "my" meant yours and not anyone else's. When you signed into XP, the file manager would show you your folders.

For many folks, though, that wasn't much of a convenience. People tended to have XP bypass the whole accounts thing, and created their own folders anyway, with names like "DAD'S PRIVATE STUFF DO NOT TOUCH." (There's a really secure folder for you.)

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