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How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#171

Post by vladvasiliu »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #141
brirec wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not saying it makes it okay, but the “Professional for Workstations” edition does not have any sort of sponsored start menu items or auto-installs.

Does workstation edition have the same dumb properties as LTSC such as "Visual Studio won't install because reasons" or any other restrictions?

Not that I know of. But it won't install on "normal" PCs, it requires "workstation-level" CPUs. If you install it on a regular PC, it will just revert to regular win 11 pro.

I don't know if this changed with the 22h2 upgrade, but it's the behavior I'd noticed before.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#172

Post by Wowfunhappy »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #158
gambiting wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sorry, but I consider that malicious. The OS can create a local account but doesn't give you that option specifically to make you create a windows Live account. That is almost textbook definition of malicious for me.

Ten years ago you needed iTunes to enable your iPhone/iPad. Sure there are probably was a way to skip most of the requirements (except iTunes itself) but around that time I helped a friend to activate an iPad. I was forced to register an Apple account AND give it a credit card to activate that iPad. You can blame MS all you want, but MS IS LATE FOR THE PARTY WITH ALL THAT SHIT .

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#173

Post by fulafel »

iggldiggl wrote: post #163
fulafel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they still unknowingly suffer from the harm it did to network effects and ability to deploy new types of internet apps.

Even without NAT I don't necessarily want any old program to be immediately immediately reachable from the outside, so I still want a default-deny inbound firewall, and as long as it happens under your control, there's not much of a difference between having to configure my router's NAT and having to configure its firewall (in the case of my home router it's literally the same settings page). I.e. no big deal for me,…

Are you referring to port forwarding? This can work around only a small part of the stuff NAT breaks, and even for those it covers it's a major barrier to application adoption. A new application relying network effects needs to work for the vast majority of users to be able to take off. If you prevent 30-50% of users adopting it, it's not going to take off for example in gaming or communications / sharing apps.

For example port forwarding dosn't help evolution of new internet protocols. Iit prevents replacing TCP with SCTP due to this, or deployment end-to-end IP level encryption (like IPSEC attempted). Or a myriad of other decentralized or security enhancing inventions that depended on the end-to-end nature of the internet architecture that now have never gotten off the drawing board because they are not NAT-compatible.

(And of course the majority of users behind NAT are in fact behind third party controlled NATs)

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#174

Post by miyuru »

sammy2255 wrote: post #72

Why don’t they make this configurable? I want to hit 1.1.1.1 not microsoft. Also, sucks how Spotify wont even try to play songs when Windows displays no internet

you might want to use one.one.one.one for dualstack not 1.1.1.1.

for spotify, offline playback is premium feature.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#175

Post by petesergeant »

bombcar wrote: post #104
woodruffw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they hit http://captive.apple.com now (and that's what I use).

They use more than that, I've seen it on the wire (to prevent DNS caching I believe). http://neverssl.com also works And https://1.1.1.1 breaks people's brains if they know enough

I prefer https://1.1.257

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#177

Post by vetinari »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #170
jeroenhd wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also try to join a domain, enter bad credentials, wait for the error to show up, and then select a local account I believe. That may not be available in the home edition of Windows 11, though.

IIRC you don't need bad credentials. It just offers to create a local account, without even asking to connect to the domain. But yeah, I'm pretty sure the domain join is only an option on the pro and enterprise editions. I've also found out that the domain join is only offered if it can contact the internet. I installed this on a brand-new laptop the other day, and it didn't detect the wifi card and it had no wired n…

The "domain join" is misleading. It does not really join the domain, it just creates local account. Joining domain has to be done manually after installation. (Otherwise, network connection is a logical requirement for for domain join, you need to contact DC after all.)

This is in a stark contrast with current linux desktop distributions, which do allow domain join straight from their OOBE.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#178

Post by imhoguy »

parhamn wrote: post #5
YPPH wrote: post #4

Given the sheer volume of connections to the test servers, wouldn't it make sense to have the content of the text file as minimal as possible? Such as "1" or "OK".

21 bytes extra at 1T requests a day = 21TB/day. Probably nothing?

In the bigger picture:

  curl -is http://www.msftconnecttest.com/connecttest.txt | wc -c
  520
499TB/d vs 520TB/d, would be that a significant difference?

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#179

Post by franga2000 »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #158
gambiting wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sorry, but I consider that malicious. The OS can create a local account but doesn't give you that option specifically to make you create a windows Live account. That is almost textbook definition of malicious for me.

Ten years ago you needed iTunes to enable your iPhone/iPad. Sure there are probably was a way to skip most of the requirements (except iTunes itself) but around that time I helped a friend to activate an iPad. I was forced to register an Apple account AND give it a credit card to activate that iPad. You can blame MS all you want, but MS IS LATE FOR THE PARTY WITH ALL THAT SHIT .

I bought my first Apple device (an iPad) two weeks ago out of necessity and even created an Apple account in advance, assuming Apple will force me to use it. I was very surprised to find a very obvious "Skip" button that let me complete the process with no account.

And just because other manufacturers do it, isn't a reason not to blame MS for what MS did. Nobody forced them to do this and it's not even common practice. The OS wasn't "built with online accounts in mind". It's something nobody asked for and everyone lived happily without before.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#180

Post by lzooz »

majkinetor wrote: post #167
borissk wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works perfectly well for 99.9999% of the users. The few exceptions are people with proxy servers, virtual machines and other exotic network configs.

That is not my experience and you can't just imagine number like that. I am currently on basic OS install without anything in between and it doesn't work. I just switched from home router to my phone's hotspot and its the same. It seems its not only Windows problem. Viber desktop has exclamation icon and it will persist until it is restarted, Mattermost works, Signal works etc. Check it out: https://i.imgur.com/Oi5gm…

What happens when you try to load http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt or http://www.msftconnecttest.com/connecttest.txt ?

If they don't load for you you probably modified your install with shutup10, block microsoft domains using your firewall or /etc/hosts or something else and you're out of support.

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