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If you install Windows 10 using a Microsoft account, instead of a local account, it will truncate the username to five letters, and use that as the user directory and a few other things. (you can fix the user directory with this: https://superuser.com/a/955026/310715)

My question, which I can't seem to find an answer to, is why! Why is Microsoft truncating the user name to five characters for linked accounts? To put it another way: why is the truncation taking place and why the (seemingly) arbitrary length?

EDIT: this question was closed as generating primarily opinion based answers. I guess the presumption is that only Microsoft can know the reason why they chose to truncate, and why they chose five characters. But, if they've published their thinking somewhere, or someone has credentialed knowledge, I think there is still an answer out there lurking. Please, if you have information or leads, add comments.

undrline - Reinstate Monica
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More testing is obviously required before this directly answers the question. Without more testing, this answer is incomplete at best.

(YMMV) - Advice for initially setting usernames when installing Windows 10
Anytime you create a new user on a PC, I think you should use a local account first, which sets the user's folder structure name, as in the C:\Users\[localAccount] folder. Then, if you really want to log in with, and attach a Microsoft registered email address to your PC login, it won't change your folder structure.

Since some email addresses would be extremely long, using that for the username which becomes the root folder for the currently logged in user would cause difficulty for programs and users. Often, logs are produced that would then contain that user's email address. These logs often are sent or posted by the user, which would publish that user's email address.

DaaBoss
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