Free email providers (like Outlook.com) have beefed up security. We’re going to go through the steps you need to take to verify your Outlook.com account. Verifying 
your account means you enter in an alternate email address (and perhaps your smart phone number too). You’ll then ask for and receive a code from Microsoft, enter it in and that proves to Microsoft that you’re the owner of that account. We’ll go through the steps next.
How To Verify Your Outlook.com Account
If you’ve set up a new Microsoft account, you are asked right away to complete tasks that will secure and verify your account. They will ask you to enter in an alternate email address and your mobile number. The alternate email and your phone number are important and will help recover your account if you forget your Microsoft credentials or your account becomes compromised.
If you don’t set security up, you’ll be ‘nagged’ to do it every time you log in, and you’ll need to keep entering your credentials (irritating).
I have an account I set up a while back and now want to use it, so we’ll use this for our example. I logged in and instead of being taken to the in-box, I was taken to my account information (the image above). I selected the ‘Security & password’, and saw I had already set up a Gmail account as a backup contact. BUT they want to know that I know my entire Gmail address. So I needed to fill it in in the rectangle. Then off I went to check my Gmail account for a code.
I copied the code I got from my Gmail account, then went back to the screen and clicked the ‘I have a code’ hyperlink. You will NOT have to enter in your email address again (that is a bit confusing), then I entered it in and ticked the checkbox that I use this computer frequently so don’t ask me again. Doing this means that now the computer I’m on is verified and next time I want to access my account information, I shouldn’t have to go through this again. I believe this is the same for those on Windows 7.
Now, my account is verified and I won’t have to go through additional steps when I’m logged in my account.
I signed out and back in again to see what would happen. I was able to go to any area of my account without having to re-verify.
Although going through these steps is a pain, it hopefully goes a long way to keep my account safe and lets me have access to all areas of my account without having to re-enter my credentials.
Outlook.com also has a 2-step verification process that we’ll look at next week.
What has your experience been with securing your Microsoft, Gmail, Yahoo or other accounts? Please leave a message in the comments.