These instructions help you to create a Microsoft Account and set up your Azure Pass.
Note: We recommend using an Enterprise Subscription with a working account that has privileges to create resources. There are some labs on this guide that require the use of 3rd party Virtual Machines that do not allow the use of Azure Pass credits. In order to minimise costs we will enable ‘auto’shutdown’ of Virtual Machines.
If you plan to use an Enterprise account with your Enterprise subscription, please go to the next section of the lab series Configuration needed before starting the labs
If you want to use the Azure Pass provided, please follow these instructions ABSOLUTELY TO THE LETTER. Please read each step twice, before you do it. This is eminently important: it’s possible to lock yourself out of your free subscription or create scenarios where the pass “is already in use”, where you get a message saying the “pass is not associated with this account” and about a dozen variants of these basic ideas. If you follow these instructions TO THE LETTER WITH NO STEPS SKIPPED OR ALTERNATIVE STEPS TAKEN (because “I can see what he means, but there’s no need to do that – I know what I’m doing”) – then you will have success. It’ll take you less than 5 minutes and you’ll have started the Azure labwork while others are still trying to activate their subscriptions.
You can only assign one free trial/Azure Pass during the entire life of a Hotmail/outlook.com/Live-ID… Therefore, avoid using an existing outlook.com/Hotmail.com/LiveID. We’ve come across it many times where people took out a trial in 2008 and have completely forgotten all about it. You’ll only get an error message saying you can’t do that….
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Close down all web browsers
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Fire up a single InPrivate instance of Internet Explorer. Double check to make sure you have only a single, InPrivate instance of Internet Explorer loaded.
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Go to http://account.live.com. If it shows you are logged in, click the sign-out button, close the browser down and fire up another InPrivate Instance.
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Go to http://outlook.com and create a new account…
Use the [email protected] , where X has given to you by the proctors
…or you might get a box like this:
- Go through the sign-up process and remember your username and password.
- Click the icon in the top right corner of the page:
- Click Sign out on the right hand pane that appears:
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Shut down every browser and then open a single InPrivate browser.
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Click the Start button
- Enter your credentials and click the Sign in button:
- Click the Confirm Microsoft Account button.
- Enter the promo code you instructor has given you and then click Claim Promo Code
- It takes a few minutes for the page to move on. Eventually you end up at an ACTIVATE button – click it:
- After about 30 seconds you are asked to fill in a form. Click Next after filling in section 1.
- You are prompted for a phone number enter some data and click Next. It might take a minute or two to process…
- At the agreement screen – agree to the terms and conditions. You might opt out of the marketing info – your choice, then click Sign-Up:
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This part also takes a few minutes. There’s one point where you get a page saying “This typically takes up to 4 minutes”. BE CAREFUL! – experience has taught me to never click anything on this page until you see a page saying “Your subscription is ready for you”.
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Click the “Or get started with your Azure subscription >” hyperlink. DO NOT click the green button:
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Eventually you end up at a button that says “manage my subscription” – go ahead. You’re ready…
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You’re now in your Azure subscription. You’re offered to go on a tour of the UI – it’s probably best to save time and click Maybe later
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To check whether you genuinely have a subscription and not just a UI that will fail to provision anything, click Cost Management and Billing near the bottom of the left-hand pane:
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If the SUBSCRIPTION and SUBSCRIPTION ID columns are blank, something has gone wrong – talk to your instructor. Otherwise, you’re good to go. Congratulations!
