Xbox Live - Creating a Windows Live ID

Joe Brennan: Hi, I am Joe Brennan from progamer.com and this is learn how to join Xbox live. Right now we are going to learn how to create or enter our Windows live ID. So now that we have our gamertag name, we also have to make sure that we create or use our existing Windows Live ID. A Windows Live ID would be the account name and password say for an existing Hotmail or MSN account that you may have. An account or a profile that you may have created for yourself at xbox.com or even a Zune account that you may have or if you are really old school, a passport network account from back in the day. If you don't have one, you are going to have to create a brand new one to join Xbox Live.

So, let's go ahead and create one. We are going to use our left thumb stick to navigate down to the No, Create one menu item and select A. Select the country that you are in. We are in the good old United States of America. Our language is English. Our Date of Birth -- oh I am going to feel very self conscious about that. Use the left thumb stick to navigate to move the numbers up or down and I am ashamed to say that this year GodEmperor is going to be turning 40. A 40 year old gamer. There is more of us than you may know.

Once you have your correct birth date entered, select A, green button A to return. Navigate with your left thumb stick down to the next menu item, select A and you are going to have to give a valid e-mail address. So, make sure you type in a valid e-mail address. For today, we are going to blot out the address that I am going to use but make sure you have one for yourself that works. You also cannot use a duplicate of the same address. If you already have a Windows Live ID but you are trying to create a brand new account, you are going to have to create a brand new Windows Live ID, since you can't double up.

So, select Done. Click Next. And now we are going to create our Windows Live ID password. We are going to have to confirm that, just to make sure that we entered it correctly because later on you are going to have an option to log in automatically and not have to enter your user name and password each time you log on to the service. We need to create a secret question, now lucky for us, Microsoft has been kind enough to give us a menu of questions to choose from. Your favorite fictional character, a person from history, your favorite book or story from childhood. There is an awful lot of childhood memories that are required when considering a secret question. The food you have always liked, your two best childhood friends, favorite TV show, that's not on anymore, l like that one. Let's select that and come up with our Secret Answer. Now I am really showing how old GodEmperor is here, since Cheers went off the air in 1994. Select Next. Now we are going to have to enter in our account information. Your first name, last name, my phone number, which I am going to leave out there for all the ladies. Since we have already entered in a valid e-mail address that's already there. Let's make sure it's correct before we move on to select the next button and of course, we come to the terms of use and privacy statement.

Now, I realize it's the temptation to just quickly navigate past here but maybe you would like to take just a moment to use your left thumb stick, navigate over and review down the terms of use before going back and accepting. So now our Windows Live ID has been created. If you have to make any changes you can always go online to <a>www.passport.net</a>. Now you have created your Windows Live ID. You are going to have to save the password so that each time that you sign on to Windows Live, you don't have to retype the password.

Now that we have created or entered our Windows Live ID, it's time to pick a membership level for Xbox Live.