Windows App Downloads from store

Paul wrote:

Pat wrote:

No, I hadn't been to that site yet, but I just tried it. My
birthdate is already correct so they suggest sending a copy of my
birth certificate or driver's license to Microsoft. I think I would
rather start from scratch than send sensitive personal information
to Microsoft.

They should be honoring the current setting, and "deriving" any
information from those fields correctly.

It's not that the actual fields need correcting. You say they already
reflect your birth date, so setting them to the same exact value
again isn't going to achieve anything.

I have hit oddities where the current value is correct but not honored
(mostly in software configs, though). I found that changing the value,
saving it, and changing it back then gets the value honored. The OP
might try changing to an even older birthdate, save, logout, login,
change birthdate to match his correct one (assuming it now makes him of
adult age, or older), save, logout, and login.

.. . .winston wrote:
Pat wrote:

Thanks. I agree. And yet when I try to download an app, I get,
"Change purchase setting. To buy this, an adult needs to sign in and
unblock purchases at account.microsoft.com/family. Or they can go to
account.xbox.com Xbox settings Privacy & online safety.
PUR-BlockedByFamilyPolicy BnZfy3VFQ1ahNBWq.32.1 2017/06/26 -
18:23:32 UTC" (That was about 15 minutes ago while trying to download
the free Netflix app from the store.)



That's an entirely different issue than account services on Family safety.

If your birth date year for the same MSA is correct in your Profile,
XBox, Skype, etc. profiles *and* no one else has added you as 'child
account' then your only resort is to walk through the hoops in the
requests provided by the MSFT Support organization. Provide the
requested content, they've little leeway to escalate an issue until you
prove you are you. The alternative, create a new MSA, use it to logon
to Win10 on the same device, and use it if the Store is accessible, then
close the other account.
- Note: If you have a billable service on the account you will have to
cancel that service prior to closing the account.

Good luck.

Someone in Tech Support should be able to look
at the objective facts as they stand now, and announce
how this block is happening.

There's no need to photocopy or FAX anything, for a technologist
to verify a derived data quantity in two databases was handled properly.

There's an explanation in there. No need to "smother" the evidence
trail by having Tech Support "zap" the evidence.

That's why you should talk to Tech Support first, because
computers are not infallible, and somebody has made a mistake
somewhere, in coding.

Maybe, in fact, part of the logic uses data mining. In which
cases, again, the Tech Support are going to hide what they've been
doing and just gloss over the change they need to make. "Oh, uh,
oh yah, fixed :-), have a good day now, bye".

As near as I can tell, this system has only one date field.
And unless data mining is being used to identify "childish"
behavior, there should be a simple binary go/no go decision
based on the date field. The user is able to see this date
field, when they use the Account tool. So all that remains,
is for the actual, slimy trail to be examined. What they've
actually done, in an implementation, instead of what they
should have done.

Paul

VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote:

Pat wrote:

No, I hadn't been to that site yet, but I just tried it. My
birthdate is already correct so they suggest sending a copy of my
birth certificate or driver's license to Microsoft. I think I would
rather start from scratch than send sensitive personal information
to Microsoft.
They should be honoring the current setting, and "deriving" any
information from those fields correctly.

It's not that the actual fields need correcting. You say they already
reflect your birth date, so setting them to the same exact value
again isn't going to achieve anything.

I have hit oddities where the current value is correct but not honored
(mostly in software configs, though). I found that changing the value,
saving it, and changing it back then gets the value honored. The OP
might try changing to an even older birthdate, save, logout, login,
change birthdate to match his correct one (assuming it now makes him of
adult age, or older), save, logout, and login.

But this is The Cloud.

I think your algorithm is admirable, for *local* computer
problems. Problems where you're in control of everything,
and can "nuke it from space, to be sure".

Yes, you can throw away a copy of Windows 10, you
can throw away that MSA, that email address, the works,
enter everything again or whatever.

But I wouldn't do that.

There's a principle involved here. Someone has erected
a barrier on purpose. A company that wants to "copy the
Apple business model". Well, you have to earn the trust
and respect of customers, by doing the right thing. And
this is one of those situations. Tech Support should be
ready, willing and able, to set this mess "upright again".

Paul

Paul wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote:

Pat wrote:

No, I hadn't been to that site yet, but I just tried it. My
birthdate is already correct so they suggest sending a copy of my
birth certificate or driver's license to Microsoft. I think I would
rather start from scratch than send sensitive personal information
to Microsoft.
They should be honoring the current setting, and "deriving" any
information from those fields correctly.

It's not that the actual fields need correcting. You say they already
reflect your birth date, so setting them to the same exact value
again isn't going to achieve anything.

I have hit oddities where the current value is correct but not honored
(mostly in software configs, though). I found that changing the value,
saving it, and changing it back then gets the value honored. The OP
might try changing to an even older birthdate, save, logout, login,
change birthdate to match his correct one (assuming it now makes him of
adult age, or older), save, logout, and login.

But this is The Cloud.

I think your algorithm is admirable, for *local* computer
problems. Problems where you're in control of everything,
and can "nuke it from space, to be sure".

Databases can get out of sync with their pointers, too. Might be the
cloud to you but to the other end it is local.

VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote:

Pat wrote:

No, I hadn't been to that site yet, but I just tried it. My
birthdate is already correct so they suggest sending a copy of my
birth certificate or driver's license to Microsoft. I think I would
rather start from scratch than send sensitive personal information
to Microsoft.
They should be honoring the current setting, and "deriving" any
information from those fields correctly.

It's not that the actual fields need correcting. You say they already
reflect your birth date, so setting them to the same exact value
again isn't going to achieve anything.
I have hit oddities where the current value is correct but not honored
(mostly in software configs, though). I found that changing the value,
saving it, and changing it back then gets the value honored. The OP
might try changing to an even older birthdate, save, logout, login,
change birthdate to match his correct one (assuming it now makes him of
adult age, or older), save, logout, and login.
But this is The Cloud.

I think your algorithm is admirable, for *local* computer
problems. Problems where you're in control of everything,
and can "nuke it from space, to be sure".

Databases can get out of sync with their pointers, too. Might be the
cloud to you but to the other end it is local.

But a store transaction accepts as input:

1) MSA identifier.
2) The item number of the item you want to buy.

3) The rest of it is resolved, between the MSA database
in The Cloud and the Store logic.

None of the important information for this transaction,
or the computing involved, should be done on the client
machine. You will notice Microsoft has gone to great
lengths to sanitize everything with regard to the store,
including downloading all assets again, after an OS upgrade.

The user can review their "Account" information by logging in.
That's how they get to view the information entered, including
the birthdate. That information should not be stored on the
local machine, and it would be bad security to pull identifiers
from a locally cached store on the client computer (because
then the little kiddies would be hacking that info).

All the information needed, is on the Microsoft end. For
them to resolve.

The user can only "hint" to them, by phone, that the
birthdate field makes the transaction legit. Then,
it's up to the Microsoft end to deliver.

Paul

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?



It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?

Pat

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:15:27 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?



It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?

You can run a simple test to validate the theory that DNS was the
culprit. Use the dig command, already installed on every Linux and
available to download for Windows.

dig @8.8.8.8 www.ms-store.com
dig @1.2.3.4 www.ms-store.com

Where www.ms-store.com is the URL of the Windows store and 1.2.3.4 is
the address of the TWC DNS server, before you changed it to 8.8.8.8.

If both DNS servers resolve to the same IP address, then DNS wasn't the
culprit and it was a coincidence that changing DNS changed the outcome.

Pat wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?



It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?

Pat


Now that *is* cool.

That means more than one server was involved in the
transaction. But I can't guess why. Or even, why no
(appropriate) error would be thrown, or log generated.

The next time you do a business deal with Microsoft, try this:

1) Wait for Windows 10 to become "quiet". Make sure it's
finished all its normal Windows Update and Defender Updates,
and that it's "ready to work". You don't want "noise"
in (2) to distract you.

2) Start TCPView.
Do your deal.
Watch what connections are opened.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...ernals/tcpview

And maybe the names of the servers involved, may hint
as to how a Store transaction actually works.

Telemetry is done by machines with "vortex" in the IP name.

I don't know what the Store one would call itself.

I would have recommended Wireshark for this, but not
a lot of posters like it. Too complicated.

*******

There are various screen recorders, which can take snapshots
of the screen. On some occasions, I run FFMPEG (gdigrab) at
1 FPS, to gather evidence from a machine over the long term.
If some info is more transient then that, then I crank the
frame-rate as appropriate. So it is possible to record
the TCPView info as it happens, just in case an entry is
too fleeting to write down.

This, for example, will fill the current working directory with
thousands of JPG files. These can be reviewed at leisure later.
I can also take the folder and make a movie out of it later.
The "q:v" call sets the quality at the highest level, as
otherwise the captures look pretty grubby. q:v varies from
1..32 or so, 32 being "very fuzzy". When you want to stop
capture, press control-C in the Command Prompt window, and any
outstanding files get closed properly.

C:\FFMPEG\bin\ffmpeg -framerate 1 -f gdigrab -i desktop -f image2 -q:v 1 -c:v mjpeg a%05d.jpg

One benefit of that method, is it has potential for multi-threading,
so at higher frame rates, your 4 core processor can make the JPGs
at least four at a time.

The "a%05d" part makes automatically generated file names like
a00000.jpg, a00001.jpg, and so on. Select enough digits for the
expected duration of capture. On a typical session, I might
be working with 60,000 files in a folder, so I guess that's why
I selected that value.

It's also possible to add a "timestamp" field to the surface
of each picture, but that's an "extra points" project which
will take a few hours to figure out. You probably don't need
that in this case. I use timestamps, if I need to correlate
the picture collection I've got, with info captured via
Sysinternals Process Monitor (which has its own timestamp
field). Then I can align movie evidence, with the ProcMon
trace.

Paul

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:13:50 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:15:27 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?



It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?

You can run a simple test to validate the theory that DNS was the
culprit. Use the dig command, already installed on every Linux and
available to download for Windows.

dig @8.8.8.8 www.ms-store.com
dig @1.2.3.4 www.ms-store.com

Where www.ms-store.com is the URL of the Windows store and 1.2.3.4 is
the address of the TWC DNS server, before you changed it to 8.8.8.8.

If both DNS servers resolve to the same IP address, then DNS wasn't the
culprit and it was a coincidence that changing DNS changed the outcome.

I may install dig on this PC, but I don't currently have a URL for the
windows store. The store app has all that built in. I can do what
Paul suggested (essentially run a trace and figure out what the store
app is doing. That's the only way I can think of to get the URL it is
trying to use.

Another interesting note: Remember I said earlier that I have two PCs
here and both exhibit the problem. After the DNS entry was changed on
this PC, I went and tried to download an app on the other one. Sure
enough, it still has the problem. It is set to use TWC's DNS servers
(209.18.47.61 & 209.18.47.62).

I just did another experiment... On a hunch, I pinged
store.mircrosoft.com. Other MS URLs use that type of format. On this
PC with Google's DNS, it resolves to 104.40.211.35. On the other PC
with TWC DNS, it resolves to 23.96.52.53. Hmmmm.

Pat wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:13:50 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:15:27 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?


It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?
You can run a simple test to validate the theory that DNS was the
culprit. Use the dig command, already installed on every Linux and
available to download for Windows.

dig @8.8.8.8 www.ms-store.com
dig @1.2.3.4 www.ms-store.com

Where www.ms-store.com is the URL of the Windows store and 1.2.3.4 is
the address of the TWC DNS server, before you changed it to 8.8.8.8.

If both DNS servers resolve to the same IP address, then DNS wasn't the
culprit and it was a coincidence that changing DNS changed the outcome.

I may install dig on this PC, but I don't currently have a URL for the
windows store. The store app has all that built in. I can do what
Paul suggested (essentially run a trace and figure out what the store
app is doing. That's the only way I can think of to get the URL it is
trying to use.

Another interesting note: Remember I said earlier that I have two PCs
here and both exhibit the problem. After the DNS entry was changed on
this PC, I went and tried to download an app on the other one. Sure
enough, it still has the problem. It is set to use TWC's DNS servers
(209.18.47.61 & 209.18.47.62).

I just did another experiment... On a hunch, I pinged
store.mircrosoft.com. Other MS URLs use that type of format. On this
PC with Google's DNS, it resolves to 104.40.211.35. On the other PC
with TWC DNS, it resolves to 23.96.52.53. Hmmmm.

"The IP address 104.40.211.35 was found in Amsterdam,
Noord-Holland, Netherlands. It is allocated to Microsoft Corporation.

IP address: 104.40.211.35
ISP: Microsoft Corporation
City: Amsterdam
Region: Noord-Holland"

"The IP address 23.96.52.53 was found in Boydton, Virginia, United States.
It is allocated to Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Hosting.

IP address: 23.96.52.53
ISP: Microsoft Corporation
Organization: Microsoft Hosting
City: Boydton
Region: Virginia"

Interesting. Some kind of dynamic DNS problem ?
Some DNS lookups are supposed to "resolve locally".
An example would be Google references, which should
resolve to nodes on your own continent. Maybe the
necessary info did not propagate to TWC (yet or ever) ?

My own DNS here, won't reverse translate those IP, into
a "Store-like name".

Maybe you were "buying software on the wrong continent" :-)
And didn't even know it.

Paul

Pat wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?



It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?

Pat

DNS can be used for parental filtering. If you use OpenDNS as your DNS
provider, they will, by default, include their anti-malware categories
for filtering out where you can go. If you get an account at OpenDNS,
you won't find the malware category. It's automatically employed for
everyone and those who volunter to be malware reporters can see that
category. If you use OpenDNS and either have a static IP address to
configure in your account with them or you use a DNS updater client to
update your OpenDNS account with your current IP address, you can add
more categories of sites to block. You can even add your own URLs to
block those sites (max of 50 in a free account).

I switched away from using my ISP's DNS servers quite awhile ago. Their
DNS service had outages about half a dozen times per year and too often
it took them hours before fixing it. There's no way I'm recording IP
addresses for everywhere I want to visit plus web pages are often
encoding using hostnames, not IP addresses. I use Google DNS (8.8.8.8)
as my primary DNS provider and OpenDNS (208.67.222.222) as my secondary.
I no longer have an account at OpenDNS so the only filtering from there
is on known malware domains. If your router supports IPv6 then make
sure you configure your DNS settings to use Google DNS for both IPv4 and
IPv6.

However, when I hit a domain that is filtered, I get an error that is
obviously issued by the DNS server. I wouldn't see Microsoft telling me
that I couldn't get there.

Looks like your ISP decided to enforce parental controls. Presumably
you have an account at your ISP into which you can log into. See if
parental controls are somewhere in those settings.

Pat wrote:

I just did another experiment... On a hunch, I pinged
store.mircrosoft.com. Other MS URLs use that type of format. On this
PC with Google's DNS, it resolves to 104.40.211.35. On the other PC
with TWC DNS, it resolves to 23.96.52.53. Hmmmm.

A server can have multiple IP addresses. Do a nslookup.

nslookup store.microsoft.com
Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 2001:4860:4860::8888 (Google's IPv6 address)

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: store.microsoft.com
Addresses: 23.96.52.53 (one that you found via ping)
191.239.213.197
104.40.211.35 (another you found via ping)
104.43.195.251
23.100.122.175

ping only shows you the IP address for the first route or connection
(the one that it used, not for every IP address assigned to a host).

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 15:19:21 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:13:50 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:15:27 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?



It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?

You can run a simple test to validate the theory that DNS was the
culprit. Use the dig command, already installed on every Linux and
available to download for Windows.

dig @8.8.8.8 www.ms-store.com
dig @1.2.3.4 www.ms-store.com

Where www.ms-store.com is the URL of the Windows store and 1.2.3.4 is
the address of the TWC DNS server, before you changed it to 8.8.8.8.

If both DNS servers resolve to the same IP address, then DNS wasn't the
culprit and it was a coincidence that changing DNS changed the outcome.

I may install dig on this PC, but I don't currently have a URL for the
windows store. The store app has all that built in. I can do what
Paul suggested (essentially run a trace and figure out what the store
app is doing. That's the only way I can think of to get the URL it is
trying to use.

Another interesting note: Remember I said earlier that I have two PCs
here and both exhibit the problem. After the DNS entry was changed on
this PC, I went and tried to download an app on the other one. Sure
enough, it still has the problem. It is set to use TWC's DNS servers
(209.18.47.61 & 209.18.47.62).

I just did another experiment... On a hunch, I pinged
store.mircrosoft.com. Other MS URLs use that type of format. On this
PC with Google's DNS, it resolves to 104.40.211.35. On the other PC
with TWC DNS, it resolves to 23.96.52.53. Hmmmm.

store.microsoft.com resolves to five (5) A records, including both of
the ones you listed. Interestingly, no matter how many times I ran the
query, I got the list of 5 records in the same order. That aspect is
fairly unusual.

It's *possible* that one or more of those addresses points to a
misconfigured server, but I'm not going to try to test that. If you want
to, you can add an entry in your hosts file that points to a specific IP
address from the lists below, but there's no real guarantee that MS even
uses the hosts file these days. Anyway, here are my results:



C:\Windows\System32dig @209.18.47.61 store.microsoft.com

; DiG 9.10.3-P2 @209.18.47.61 store.microsoft.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; -HEADER- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 52440
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 8192
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;store.microsoft.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 23.96.52.53
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 191.239.213.197
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 104.40.211.35
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 104.43.195.251
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 23.100.122.175

;; Query time: 37 msec
;; SERVER: 209.18.47.61#53(209.18.47.61)
;; WHEN: Tue Jun 27 18:44:41 Central Daylight Time 2017
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 128


C:\Windows\System32dig @8.8.8.8 store.microsoft.com

; DiG 9.10.3-P2 @8.8.8.8 store.microsoft.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; -HEADER- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37775
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;store.microsoft.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 23.96.52.53
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 191.239.213.197
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 104.40.211.35
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 104.43.195.251
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 23.100.122.175

;; Query time: 29 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Tue Jun 27 18:45:19 Central Daylight Time 2017
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 128


C:\Windows\System32

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 18:52:37 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 15:19:21 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:13:50 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:15:27 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 09:47:44 -0400, Pat wrote:

I haven't downloaded anything from the Windows Store for a long time,
but recently tried to download a game. The store insists that I can't
download anything until an adult logs on and says it's OK. I wish I
was young enough for that to make sense - let's just say I retired a
few years back. I checked my account info on the store site and it
has my correct birthday. I have tried various suggestions found by
googling, but nothing works. Any ideas?



It's fixed!

As one or more of you suggested, I called Microsoft support. I spent
about 90 minutes on the phone while they had me try all the things I
already tried. (I understand that. I wouldn't trust me either if I
didn't know me.) The last 30 minutes or so was with a higher level
tech using a remote connection. She asked all the same questions and
tried all the same things I had tried previously. We even created a
new account and still had the same issue. Finally, she went to
network properties and changed the first DNS entry from the previous
setting to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8). That fixed the problem. Can
anyone explain why? I'll experiment some more. The previous setting
was Time Warner Cable's DNS server or my Linksys router (which had
Time Warner's DNS server as its DNS). I looked away for a few seconds
and missed what had been in there. However, everything else worked
with the old entries. Why would a DNS error make the store think I
was a child?

You can run a simple test to validate the theory that DNS was the
culprit. Use the dig command, already installed on every Linux and
available to download for Windows.

dig @8.8.8.8 www.ms-store.com
dig @1.2.3.4 www.ms-store.com

Where www.ms-store.com is the URL of the Windows store and 1.2.3.4 is
the address of the TWC DNS server, before you changed it to 8.8.8.8.

If both DNS servers resolve to the same IP address, then DNS wasn't the
culprit and it was a coincidence that changing DNS changed the outcome.

I may install dig on this PC, but I don't currently have a URL for the
windows store. The store app has all that built in. I can do what
Paul suggested (essentially run a trace and figure out what the store
app is doing. That's the only way I can think of to get the URL it is
trying to use.

Another interesting note: Remember I said earlier that I have two PCs
here and both exhibit the problem. After the DNS entry was changed on
this PC, I went and tried to download an app on the other one. Sure
enough, it still has the problem. It is set to use TWC's DNS servers
(209.18.47.61 & 209.18.47.62).

I just did another experiment... On a hunch, I pinged
store.mircrosoft.com. Other MS URLs use that type of format. On this
PC with Google's DNS, it resolves to 104.40.211.35. On the other PC
with TWC DNS, it resolves to 23.96.52.53. Hmmmm.

store.microsoft.com resolves to five (5) A records, including both of
the ones you listed. Interestingly, no matter how many times I ran the
query, I got the list of 5 records in the same order. That aspect is
fairly unusual.

It's *possible* that one or more of those addresses points to a
misconfigured server, but I'm not going to try to test that. If you want
to, you can add an entry in your hosts file that points to a specific IP
address from the lists below, but there's no real guarantee that MS even
uses the hosts file these days. Anyway, here are my results:



C:\Windows\System32dig @209.18.47.61 store.microsoft.com

; DiG 9.10.3-P2 @209.18.47.61 store.microsoft.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; -HEADER- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 52440
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 8192
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;store.microsoft.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 23.96.52.53
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 191.239.213.197
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 104.40.211.35
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 104.43.195.251
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 23.100.122.175

;; Query time: 37 msec
;; SERVER: 209.18.47.61#53(209.18.47.61)
;; WHEN: Tue Jun 27 18:44:41 Central Daylight Time 2017
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 128


C:\Windows\System32dig @8.8.8.8 store.microsoft.com

; DiG 9.10.3-P2 @8.8.8.8 store.microsoft.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; -HEADER- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37775
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;store.microsoft.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 23.96.52.53
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 191.239.213.197
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 104.40.211.35
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 104.43.195.251
store.microsoft.com. 1637 IN A 23.100.122.175

;; Query time: 29 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Tue Jun 27 18:45:19 Central Daylight Time 2017
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 128


C:\Windows\System32

I get the same 5 records but in a different order (see below). I
think Paul's finding that TWC's DNS comes up with a server located in
Europe is very interesting. I'll spend some more time on this
tomorrow.

Thanks everyone,
Pat


c:\nslookup store.microsoft.com 8.8.8.8
Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: store.microsoft.com
Addresses: 23.100.122.175
23.96.52.53
191.239.213.197
104.40.211.35
104.43.195.251

c:\nslookup store.microsoft.com 209.18.47.61
Server: dns-cac-lb-01.rr.com
Address: 209.18.47.61

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: store.microsoft.com
Addresses: 191.239.213.197
104.40.211.35
104.43.195.251
23.100.122.175
23.96.52.53

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 21:31:17 -0400, Pat wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2017 18:52:37 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

store.microsoft.com resolves to five (5) A records, including both of
the ones you listed. Interestingly, no matter how many times I ran the
query, I got the list of 5 records in the same order. That aspect is
fairly unusual.

Let me correct that. When servers are geo-redundant, it's not unusual to
look at where the DNS request is coming from and order the list of
responses so that the first response is the most local, and so on down
the list. Note that 'local' in this context refers to where the DNS
server that you used is located, not to where you are.

It's easy to check that by using DNS servers located in various
countries around the world. Both dig and nslookup allow you to specify
any DNS server.

store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 23.96.52.53
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 191.239.213.197
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 104.40.211.35
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 104.43.195.251
store.microsoft.com. 3600 IN A 23.100.122.175

I get the same 5 records but in a different order (see below). I
think Paul's finding that TWC's DNS comes up with a server located in
Europe is very interesting. I'll spend some more time on this
tomorrow.