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Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

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Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#271

Post by diego_sandoval »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #120
windows2020 wrote: post #94

Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand. My first experience with Windows 11 was figuring out some dumb workaround to use a local account. When I think back to Windows 7, the good feeling isn't nostalgia. It was the last user-focused Windows. Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs. Or better yet, maybe Microsoft will realize v…

> Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand. Microsoft realized after Windows 8 and Windows 10 that literally nobody, outside of niche tech circles, has positive associations with the Windows brand, or views "Windows" as a selling point beyond "runs my old software." As such, it doesn't matter to them anymore. It's like being the PR department at your local electricity provider or oil…

Pretty much.

I remember when new Windows versions were still an event: you could read about it on the magazines, people would get excited to try them, people would debate about how pretty/ugly the new UI was, etc.

Nowadays new Windows versions are like some unwanted background noise. I don't even know at what point Windows 10 stopped being the new version and 11 came out, but it went totally unnoticed to me until I heard that Windows 10 was close to EOL a couple of months ago. And then you start dreading the moment that you'll have to migrate and uninstall all the Xbox crap again that they force on you, etc.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#272

Post by chii »

HaZeust wrote: post #256
chii wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you buy windows 10 LTSC without being an enterprise?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-...

how does that download get me an activation key for it? As far as i know, you cannot just pay for one license of LTSC

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#273

Post by userbinator »

windows2020 wrote: post #94

Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand. My first experience with Windows 11 was figuring out some dumb workaround to use a local account. When I think back to Windows 7, the good feeling isn't nostalgia. It was the last user-focused Windows. Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs. Or better yet, maybe Microsoft will realize v…

Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs.

That's either Linux with WINE, or a "custom distro" of Windows from the remaining neighbourly hackers in the modding scene (they can't embed the hostility everywhere and as deep as the kernel, although they are most likely trying.)

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#274

Post by avhception »

eadmund wrote: post #200

If customers keep trying to do something … let them do it? Charge them to do it? It’s crazy to me: folks quite clearly want to run Windows 11 without an account. What is it worth to Microsoft let someone do that? $12? $144? $1,728?

That's a bit like asking to get a "smart" TV without the spyware / adware. Sure, you could pay more! But they can also just take both your money and that other money. What are you gonna do, buy a non-"smart" TV? :)

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#275

Post by [deleted] »

snovymgodym wrote: post #167
windows2020 wrote: post #94

Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand. My first experience with Windows 11 was figuring out some dumb workaround to use a local account. When I think back to Windows 7, the good feeling isn't nostalgia. It was the last user-focused Windows. Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs. Or better yet, maybe Microsoft will realize v…

I'm not convinced Microsoft cares about the Windows market share in consumer PCs or the small amount of money they make from selling Windows licenses to regular consumers. If they did, Windows wouldn't be so usable unactivated and the MassGravel activation stuff would have been patched already. They built up their almost-monopoly when it mattered in the 90s and the 2000s, and now their market position is basically se…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#276

Post by doodlebugging »

aeon_ai wrote: post #179
mh- wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until you listed Xbox - their consoles are dying in the market. They've adopted a strategy of calling everything "gaming" Xbox , and seem to be going all-in on Gamepass subscription revenue along with making their first-party games available on other platforms. I'll be surprised if there is another flagship console following the Series X. We'll see how that works out for them.

They also just botched a price increase. Microsoft is floundering right now.

XBox Game Pass looks a lot like the last straw to me. Looks like a(nother) cash grab.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#277

Post by t0bia_s »

Creating bootable USB disc of LTSC Enterprise IoT version of Windows by Rufus let you set up local account and skip it during installation.

LTSC is basically debloated version of Win with options to turn of updates or get just security ones.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#278

Post by zuminator »

maltalex wrote: post #136
ferguess_k wrote: post #83

I wonder which teams are working on these features. I'd like to meet with them in person. There are a lot to discuss.

They probably know exactly what your thoughts are about this change.

I'm more curious about what their thoughts are. They have to know what the community thinks about these moves. What do they intend to accomplish? I'd like to hear the roadmap from the lion's mouth, so to speak, if they have some kind of justification that would make sense to the skeptical observer.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#279

Post by dmantis »

SoftTalker wrote: post #206
hattmall wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>those sales will exist pretty much indefinitely. To an extent sure, but when people that grew up as home consumers not using Windows become business leaders they won't have the brand loyalty to Microsoft that the current aging out generation does. If Google doesn't characteristically fumble the bag their dominance with ChromeOS in schools has potential pay major dividends in 10-15 years. Windows centric software dev…

Do we believe that we’ll be using anything like today’s PCs and operating systems in 10-15 years time? I mean, that’s been the case since the 1980s, but now we have usable (if imperfect) AI.

Two reasons why so at least professionaly:

- Reliability. For anything that needs deterministic result and not even 99.9% of chance that it's generated correctly and not hallucinated. E.g. health, finance, military, etc. There is no room for "you're absolutely right". For the same input an algo must give the same output.

- Privacy. Until we have powerful local models (we might have though in 10 years, I don't know), sending everything to some cloud companies, which are already obliged by court to save data and have spy and ex-military generals in their boardrooms, sounds a bit crazy if it's not about an apple pie recipe. Web chat interface isolates important data from non-important, but we can't integrate it fully in our lifes.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#280

Post by toast0 »

anonymous982347 wrote: post #263
windows2020 wrote: post #94

Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand. My first experience with Windows 11 was figuring out some dumb workaround to use a local account. When I think back to Windows 7, the good feeling isn't nostalgia. It was the last user-focused Windows. Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs. Or better yet, maybe Microsoft will realize v…

Developing a new consumer-grade OS is literally not possible. I don't mean it would take a herculean effort like the software ecosystem issue takes to address, I mean actually not possible regardless of how much effort any development team put in. Virtually all hardware on the open market is made for Windows, largely powered by proprietary, closed-source drivers. Linux gets some afterthought from a percentage of vend…

Drivers are a lot of work. IMHO, do some core stuff, and then build in driver adapters. NDIS wrapper, linuxkpi, etc.

If you want to work hard to make things easy, I bet you could build a hypervisor that does pci passthrough for each device to a guest that runs a different OS driver and rexports the device as a virtio device, and then the main OS guest can just have virtio drivers for everything. It can't be that hard to take documentation for writing Windows drivers and use that to build a minimal guest kernel to run windows drivers in.

That indirection will cost performance and latency, but windows 11 feels like more latency than windows 10 too, so eh. You can also build native drivers for important stuff as needed / over time.

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