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Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

theverge.com

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Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#51

Post by zozbot234 »

transcriptase wrote: post #45
DecentShoes wrote: post #23

The best marketing campaign for Linux, is Windows 11.

The best marketing campaign for Windows is finally deciding on a distro only to be presented with a bunch of bullshit options (gnome, cinnamon, xfe, kde, mate, etc) the average person is expected to somehow understand the difference between or care about if they did. And no, someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing is not going to feel comfortable picking at random. Then the 95% odds that trying to dual boot witho…

> Then the 95% odds that trying to dual boot without the correct incantations fucks up being able to boot into Windows

This is fixed now with most desktop systems using UEFI. The bootloader will always show a "UEFI setup" option, and that in turn lets you pick alternate boot choices.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#52

Post by WD-42 »

glenstein wrote: post #21
jwoglom wrote: post #3

> We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11. This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account. "enhancing security and user experience" -- what a ridiculous, bold-faced lie. Bravo Microsoft.

Well, it's bald -faced lie but I wouldn't disagree that it's bold. The idea that you need to confirm you're connected to the internet and that creating a Microsoft account is merely for that purpose is preposterous on its face. Not that I was ever a regular on windows, but I think I've at least found there to be a necessity to be on windows for certain desirable games or for PC apps. So I've always kind of recognized…

I'm with you. The very few games I play work great on Linux. As a professional dev, there's absolutely no reason to choose Windows (or any OS, for that matter) over Desktop Linux at this point.

I'm convinced Windows is mainly for people that buy computers at Best Buy and corporate IT that are unfortunately funneled into the ecosystem (hats off salute to all you).

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#53

Post by inatreecrown2 »

Why do this? It was already a loophole that most users would never know of or care about using, but it is essential for a small core user base that cares about how they set up their systems. This cannot be a good business decision.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#54

Post by gambiting »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #33

Last time I activated a Windows 11 system, I had already entered my Wifi credentials, and then couldn't find any way out of the online account trap. Eventually backed out far enough, deleted my wifi credentials again, forward again and created a local account. Have they closed that loophole too, i.e you can't activate it at all without cloud connectivity? Another question, once you've activated it with an online acco…

That's been closed for a while now. Now(and even before this most recent update) even if you don't have any network devices present on your machine at all it still doesn't show any option to create an offline account - you just can't do it until you find a way to connect to the internet.

>> is it possile to then create another local user and simply use that?

Yes, that is absolutely an option. Just remember that by default your hard drive is encrypted with bitlocker and Windows sends the encryption key to microsoft to that account you signed in with without asking you first.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#55

Post by zb3 »

> We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience

I completely agree with this. By making Windows insufferable you're enhancing security and user experience by making users switch to Linux, which is superior in that regard. Well done, Microsoft.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#56

Post by WD-42 »

gavinhoward wrote: post #50

So I have Windows 10, and I was not looking forward to the "upgrade" to 11 at 10's EOL because of the TPM requirement. With this change, I have decided to accept the insecurity of not updating and stick with 10. The only thing I do on Windows is ensure my FOSS is cross-platform.

Have you tried using a VM? That's what I do when I want to test cross platform. The benefit being you can just re-create it whenever it starts to harass you about license keys or whatever.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#57

Post by cosmic_cheese »

tapoxi wrote: post #26

I have a recent (2024) Gigabyte AMD motherboard and Windows 11 refuses to recognize the Ethernet NIC or onboard wifi. I can't load the drivers during setup either because they're .exe installers and it wants .inf files or something. I got mad and installed Fedora Kinoite, which somehow just worked out of the box. My games all worked too. I've been mulling over installing a Windows partition for the inevitable game wi…

At this point it’s mainly my Quest 2 that’s keeping me from keeping my tower booted into Linux most of the time.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#59

Post by theandrewbailey »

tapoxi wrote: post #26

I have a recent (2024) Gigabyte AMD motherboard and Windows 11 refuses to recognize the Ethernet NIC or onboard wifi. I can't load the drivers during setup either because they're .exe installers and it wants .inf files or something. I got mad and installed Fedora Kinoite, which somehow just worked out of the box. My games all worked too. I've been mulling over installing a Windows partition for the inevitable game wi…

I had been mulling it for a while, but with (the last version of[0]) Windows 10 support ending, and Windows 11 looking like a dumpster fire, I bit the bullet and went Linux on my main desktop, reformatting over the last Windows install in my house. It's been a remarkably smooth transition for me.

At nearly the same time, I re-flashed my phone with LineageOS, but without Google apps. I finally completed my transition away from Google that started with Snowden's leaks, only coincidentally did the same to Microsoft at the same time.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-ve...

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#60

Post by imglorp »

zozbot234 wrote: post #40
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. But not all unacceptable things are illegal. And just as immoral people will do legal-but immoral things, immoral corporations will do the same.

What they're doing might actually be illegal under antitrust law, since it's effectively 'tying' a market-dominant desktop OS to provision of online services. If they are genuinely determined to get rid of the existing workarounds, there might be grounds for a formal complaint on that basis.

So there's three revenue streams, all of which are incompatible with offline usage: locking and upsell on cloud services, exfiltrating and selling your data, and showing you ads.

In an ideal world, that would be a triple decker antitrust problem!

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