After restarting my PC, nearly every Microsoft app—including Office, Microsoft Store, Xbox, and games—asks me to authenticate again. Some remember my email but require the password, while others require the full sign-in process and two-factor authentication every time. Office is especially problematic: after signing in, I often have to close and reopen the apps several times before they stop loading an older version or session. The issue originally affected Office but gradually spread to other Microsoft apps.
I've reinstalled the affected apps, cleared their data, reset the PC, and tested both Windows 10 and Windows 11 on another computer. The behavior still occurs across devices. Each sign-in also appears to add another device to my Microsoft account, eventually reaching the Microsoft Store's device limit. After that, I get signed out and have to remove older devices from the account website. When this happens, my HEVC extensions may stop working, sometimes causing the computer to crash when opening videos that use them.
Could this be an account or authentication problem, even though the recent sign-in history only shows activity from my location? What troubleshooting steps could stop Microsoft apps from forgetting my credentials after every reboot?
1 Answer
This could indicate that someone else has access to the Microsoft account, so I’d start by changing the password immediately. Review the account’s recent sign-in activity, remove unfamiliar sessions or devices, and enable a passkey or another strong sign-in method. Changing the password should force existing sessions to sign out, which may help determine whether the repeated prompts are caused by stale or corrupted authentication tokens.
I changed the password after this was suggested. The sign-in history only shows devices and locations that appear to be mine, and this has been happening for roughly two years, so I’m not convinced the account was compromised. I’ll still monitor it after the password change.