Microsoft Authenticator is asking me to authenticate using Microsoft Authenticator to use Microsoft Authenticator

That doesnt help at all because it still requires me to sign in, which requires the authenticator app. Can someone please remove this useless answer?

Desperately frustrated with this.

Adding this account to a new pc after HDD failure. Logs in to the account okay but wont let me change the security options without MS authenticator.

This account has never had or used authenticator for anything, and it has been added automatically at some point by MS as 2FA option. Nothing to do with us.

On trying to install MS authenticator it just loops, asking for authentication from authenticator. I cant access security options, I cant install authenticator and I cant speak to anyone at MS as the initial call to the UK help numbers to you to use online help which has no answers. Subsequent calls just auto redirect you to use online help.

So, cant view security, cant install authenticator, cant speak to anyone at MS to get help.

Great job whichever genius thought of adding this as a default 2FA. (that was sarcasm)

Desperately frustrated with this.

Adding this account to a new pc after HDD failure. Logs in to the account okay but wont let me change the security options without MS authenticator.

This account has never had or used authenticator for anything, and it has been added automatically at some point by MS as 2FA option. Nothing to do with us.

On trying to install MS authenticator it just loops, asking for authentication from authenticator. I cant access security options, I cant install authenticator and I cant speak to anyone at MS as the initial call to the UK help numbers to you to use online help which has no answers. Subsequent calls just auto redirect you to use online help.

So, cant view security, cant install authenticator, cant speak to anyone at MS to get help.

Great job whichever genius thought of adding this as a default 2FA. (that was sarcasm)

I am upset because it used to work and now doesn't. I've been using Micrrosoft products since 1984, so "confusion" is not the issue. Okay, I'll abstain from the language with one possible exception: Whomever coded the updates for that app is a complete idiot. I know; I'm a coder.

I'll review your cordial and informative reply when I'm not still so ★★★★★★★★★ ★★★★★★★★★★★★★ ticked off, and see if it can actually provide me with some help. I used to really like Microsoft products, but now I'm beginning to loathe them, and take great offense at being forced to use them (many requiring the app don't offer users an alternative authentication app). Security that's so tight that you can't use it is a bloody BRICK.

There's a very critical step missing in this solution. You need to be signed in to change your security settings....and how do you change your security settings....if you can't get logged into Microsoft Authenticator?!

In the OP's blurry picture you can see there's no option to sign in using anything except Microsoft.

Alana Wilson,

If you've either replaced or reset your phone without performing a backup of the old phone's authenticator data and restored to the new one, then the Authenticator app is useless, since the data required to perform authentication using the app is no longer available.

The only way possible to recover your old Microsoft Personal account in this case is to use whatever other authentication and verification options still exist, like Windows Hello Face, Fingerprint or PIN on a trusted device, password, phone number (Text), alternate email, or Recovery code (25-Digit printed or saved offline).

If you have any of these, you can use your PC device by selecting that you don't have the Authenticator (I don't have any of these, or some similar prompt at login), to get a list of these other options to try and use instead if you have them. You'll typically need at least 2 of them to make the security setting changes necessary to remove the outdated authenticator (Send sign-in notification) from the list of verification options.

Also, I recommend turning Two-Step verification - Off, a little further down that same page if you can access it, at least until you've been able to set the Authenticator back up on your new phone and perform the first backup so this situation can't happen again.

Unfortunately, the Authenticator app works differently than most consumer users are used to, since the data it contains isn't actually saved in the app itself, but rather some more secure hardware device within the phone, meaning that once that phone device is either factory reset, destroyed or lost, the authentication data it contained is lost with it.

That's why the phone backup with the Authenticator app data it includes, along with the other backup methods of authentication I mentioned above are all so necessary to recover from situations like a lost damaged or replaced phone.

Rob