This will happen when you sign in to any Microsoft product, such as Office, Teams or Onedrive. After you input email and password, there is a window dialog with a big button to use that credential to manage the device, i.e., your computer, converting your local into an online account. And there is an option, with small text, to "use only in Microsoft applications", or words to that effect. This is easy to get caught,…
Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
51–60 of 113 posts
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#52This definitely happened to me a while ago. I'm not that upset about it, except that I spent some time changing all my local accounts from "jon" to "jrockway", and signing in with my email address made my local account "jon". Now when I ssh places, I have to supply -l or properly add an entry to ~/.ssh/config because this is the only account I have that's not named "jrockway". All in all, this reduces the enjoyment i…
God, the number of panicked IT support calls I got over that particular phrasing. It was quite the month.
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#53It’s not even possible in windows 11. You can leave Microsoft behind, or accept it and move on. I think apple does this too. You have options, but they don’t include Microsoft or apple. I think chromeos, for now, lets you opt out. I could be wrong about that.
For some reason, “I think Apple does this too” always comes up in the discussions about Microsoft forcing online accounts within Windows. MacOS doesn’t do this. Accounts are machine local. iCloud integration is an optional layer on top. Always has been. Nothing has changed. Maybe give the OS a try before assuming Apple is following all the same antipatterns just because they also happen to fall into the category of “…
It's the big tech equivalent of stop and frisk.
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#54You have to be disconnected from wifi and Ethernet to be offered the option of a local account. This was removed in 11.
Shift + F10 > taskmgr > Network Connection flow > End task
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#55This definitely happened to me a while ago. I'm not that upset about it, except that I spent some time changing all my local accounts from "jon" to "jrockway", and signing in with my email address made my local account "jon". Now when I ssh places, I have to supply -l or properly add an entry to ~/.ssh/config because this is the only account I have that's not named "jrockway". All in all, this reduces the enjoyment i…
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#56Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#57I think you can also install without internet and you'll get the local account option too, but I have not tried it yet.
Super annoying. I ran into this last week while reinstalling Windows on a dead NVMe drive.
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#58You have to be disconnected from wifi and Ethernet to be offered the option of a local account. This was removed in 11.
If you create the bootable Windows 11 media with Rufus, it "allows to bypass the mandatory requirement for a Microsoft account on Windows 11 22H2. (NB: Network MUST be temporarily disabled for the local account creation to be proposed). Also add an option to skip all collection questions (Sets all answers to "Don't allow")".
the windows 10 setup wizard still tries to get you to log in, to the point of writing on the wizard "your computer must be connected to the internet to finish setup"
and yet... after you unplug the ethernet cable... it lets you finish setup without internet...
> Microsoft executives had, according to him, "proved, time and time again, to be inaccurate, misleading, evasive, and transparently false. ... Microsoft is a company with an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect. It is also a company whose senior management is not averse to offering specious testimony to support spurious defenses to claims of its wrongdoing." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#59[flagged]
It's not about making me safer, it's about keeping offline OSes as an option. The ability to buy a general purpose computer and do arbitrary things with it is something we take for granted, but will never get back once we lose it.
I use Windows for gaming, but I fully accept that I'm basically renting it as a service from Microsoft at this point even if it's a one time upfront payment to use.
Re: Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online account
#60You have to be disconnected from wifi and Ethernet to be offered the option of a local account. This was removed in 11.