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My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#261
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try having a kid and segregating funds for them while paying for their Xbox Game Pass and a Minecraft Realm with your account. I have 25 years of Windows software development experience and I was almost reduced to tears just trying to understand what I'm even trying to accomplish. Realms is still in some kind of half subscribed, half not subscribed state and it still asks for my account's PIN for purchases but actual…

The switch over the Microsoft login for Minecraft was so bad that I just gave up and got the kids using MineTest instead. And MS login for work is a complete shambles. I have to do a tactical login to Outlook with a different work account to switch login when I try to use Azure as that's the only obvious way to move to a different org account. It's horrible.

I had 2 mojang accounts for my kids, attached to 2 separate Java game licenses (because i couldn't buy 2 licenses for 1 account) used on Linux. When Microsoft forced the authentication conversion, I had to disassociate 1 of the 2 emails from the combined MS account (that I had worked really hard to combine in 2020) reincarnate that email as a separate MS account, associate it with the separate Mojang account (because MS also has no way of supporting 2 licenses on 1 MS account, even if the account listed multiple emails) and then I was promptly banned by Microsoft for breach of TOS, whatever that might have been. 12 hours later and a dozen support contacts to Mojang, I was unbanned... but my kids didn't play Minecraft that day.

To any MS/Mojang folks lurking,- great game but the authentication merge was an unforced error.

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#262

Some what related just last week someone from my company's IT department contacted me about adding my work MacBook to some Microsoft spyware scheme so they could start administering it and he was very stricken when I didn’t want to do it. At start he tried go get me on board with carrots like being able to print - an activity I haven’t performed in over five years. And it ended with “this is our policy” I told him th…

As somebody who worked in IT before and who had to wrestle a bit with policy in the past - I recommend you don't see your work MacBook as your "own computer". Because it's not. The company shouldn't restrict you from doing your job and reasonable and competent IT departments know which users needs what access (including root access) to perform their role, but they do also have a duty to the company and its equipment and frankly have the right and resoanable need to install admin tooling.

Try and see it from their perspective.

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I saw Minecraft for the Nintendo Switch I bought it, thinking it'd be a solution for the MS login madness and my kid could play easily with it. Wrong! It's even worse! You still have to log in with some MS account, but on top it's buggy, slow, laggy, and crashed a few times on me generating the world. What a disaster.

Same story here. Thought it would be great for kids to play. Takes 30 minutes of me screwing with it every time they want to play it. I gave up and put linux on an old laptop and them bought another copy of minecraft for it.

You still have to use the official launcher that requires online connection to play the game you own (twice), right?

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#264

Some what related just last week someone from my company's IT department contacted me about adding my work MacBook to some Microsoft spyware scheme so they could start administering it and he was very stricken when I didn’t want to do it. At start he tried go get me on board with carrots like being able to print - an activity I haven’t performed in over five years. And it ended with “this is our policy” I told him th…

I had the same problem recently. Just ended up buying a new computer just for work stuff. They pay me a lot so I can afford to buy M1 Air which is still really really fast.

Is it ecological? No. But the compliance beast must be fed. So fine.

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#265

Some what related just last week someone from my company's IT department contacted me about adding my work MacBook to some Microsoft spyware scheme so they could start administering it and he was very stricken when I didn’t want to do it. At start he tried go get me on board with carrots like being able to print - an activity I haven’t performed in over five years. And it ended with “this is our policy” I told him th…

I had the same problem recently. Just ended up buying a new computer just for work stuff. They pay me a lot so I can afford to buy M1 Air which is still really really fast. Is it ecological? No. But the compliance beast must be fed. So fine.

If an employer requires device registration (MDM etc), they should provide the hardware.

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#266
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that Windows 11 and above (try very hard to) require a Microsoft account, because these orcas of computing want to remind you with every step that you don't own the device you bought. Hence it's simpler/better to just virtualize everything. Then they do absolutely crazy weird things! I recently got a new laptop. My account is `adavis@ .com`, my user name on my old laptop using that account is `adavis…

This issue has been bugging me since Windows 7. Only "proper" solution is to /not/ sign into your MS account when seeting up the new machine for the first time. Create a local account with the name as you want it, and then only afterwards link it with your MS account (if you have to). Only problem is, latest Win11 installer does not allow you to create a local account anymore at all. So you need to install Win10, do…

If you can't bypass the Win11 online account requirement by being offline during install, then try this:

In the "Let's connect you to a network" page, use these steps:

* Use the Shift + F10 keyboard shortcut to open Command Prompt.

* Type the following command to release the current network configuration and press Enter: oobe\bypassnro

Note: The command is a single phrase without spaces.

Note2: This will reboot the machine and restart the installer again (why?? because fu for not wanting a MS account that's why)

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#267
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used windows for 20 years and yesterday I had a teams teleconference using Firefox on Linux. It works noticeably more poorly than most similar systems (jit.si for the win) but it works.

Teams calls are terrible for non-Windows users. :(

If it makes you feel better, I gather they're terrible for Windows users as well

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#268

Some what related just last week someone from my company's IT department contacted me about adding my work MacBook to some Microsoft spyware scheme so they could start administering it and he was very stricken when I didn’t want to do it. At start he tried go get me on board with carrots like being able to print - an activity I haven’t performed in over five years. And it ended with “this is our policy” I told him th…

As somebody who worked in IT before and who had to wrestle a bit with policy in the past - I recommend you don't see your work MacBook as your "own computer". Because it's not. The company shouldn't restrict you from doing your job and reasonable and competent IT departments know which users needs what access (including root access) to perform their role, but they do also have a duty to the company and its equipment…

From their perspective:

Worker cost 50 money. How company get 50 money? Worker not work so much, maybe? How to quantify? What if spy? Company tell IT monkey to give developer monkey spy. Our computer, company can do a little spy. Company catch smoke break. Company catch walk break. Company give worker "performance improvement plan." Company fire worker. Company now have 100 money. Company smart. Company efficient. Company legally protected from retaliation. Company give executive monkey 30 money as reward for small overhead. Company offer manager monkey 7 money. Company offer IT monkey 3 money. Company brag about in annual report.

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#269
I had the same thing happen to me, just because I was added to the parent mailing list for my kids’ school. I wanted to try an Azure service (Codespaces), but was denied.

It took a lot of back and forth with the schools admin to figure out what happened. I was able to get my account released, but I wasn’t brave enough to try what Jeff did.

Like Jeff, this did not leave me impressed with MS Azure at all. How could joining (or being added) to a mailing list imply you are now part of an organization? How does one go from LDAP to that hosted AD mess?

Re: My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account

#270

Some what related just last week someone from my company's IT department contacted me about adding my work MacBook to some Microsoft spyware scheme so they could start administering it and he was very stricken when I didn’t want to do it. At start he tried go get me on board with carrots like being able to print - an activity I haven’t performed in over five years. And it ended with “this is our policy” I told him th…

As somebody who worked in IT before and who had to wrestle a bit with policy in the past - I recommend you don't see your work MacBook as your "own computer". Because it's not. The company shouldn't restrict you from doing your job and reasonable and competent IT departments know which users needs what access (including root access) to perform their role, but they do also have a duty to the company and its equipment…

It's not merely about who owns the device though. It is also about the environment a person has to work in and that, I would say, is more relevant here. Do I want to be spied upon while working? No. Do I want to feel like in a surveillance state for 8h of my day? Do I need this feeling in my life? No and no.
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