BE VERY Careful with Bitlocker encrypted SSD and Microsoft account when setting up a new computer

You can inadvertently delete your bitlocker unlock key from your Microsoft account if you set up your new computer before recovering information from an old drive.

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

That's why I only use local accounts and save the key elsewhere.

[@oledcrt]

I’m sure they have a record of the old key even though it’s not displayed in the account

[@BM-jy6cb]

That is a ludicrous approach by Microsoft. Totally predicable that people will buy a new computer and set it up before transferring data from their old machine. I feel for all the future victims of this monumental fail.

[@Mac1PC]

I suspect the idea is that you use one drive cloud. Then its irrelevant as all your info is conceptually transferrable to new machine.

[@cleyfaye]

I'm VERY curious as to how the recovery keys are stored, server side. It seems to me that MS having your recovery key somewhere would weaken the core concept.
Anyway, some other piece of advice would be to keep a safe, physical, local record of your recovery keys and/or to not link a MS account to your OS (which is harder and harder to do these days).

[@Mac1PC]

Yes, but I suggest just removing the encryption if you don't have anything super valuable. If you have secret and valuable info then you should have an IT department to deal with issues of security.