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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

#401

Sure, Evil Microsoft. But Apple is the one that normalized this. ...Like the developer account for mobile ...Like "sideloading" And this is why this things should have been fought much harder from the beginning. These companies are merely copying what the other is getting away with.

can you please stop your whataboutism

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

#402
post #7

Had to edit a .docx today to refresh my CV today...and realised oh...I don't have any more windows machines on hand anymore. Interesting how smoothly that faded away psychologically after 20+ years of windows use without me even overtly noticing. Think MS is in for a rough ride on Windows. Short of corporate world - Excel/Sharpoint/AD - there is just no moat. Browsers work fine on all platforms, dev work is better on…

Time to get a LaTeX/Typst resume ;)

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

#403
post #300

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhappy when a sleazy corp forces me to give up on 25 years of muscle memory of using my preferred OS, but I'm thankful they gave me the push I needed to rip off the ad/spyware laced Windows Band-Aid that I only need to do once in my life. It's been over a year sinc…

I daily drive Ubuntu, the user experience is comparable (in many cases better) to Windows 11. The only sticking point for me is display drivers. HDR on Wayland is barely functional (in my experience), and getting things like hardware accelerated AV1 encoding, full Vulkan API support etc to work has been extremely difficult. Every time I login using a Wayland desktop, only my main monitor is detected and it defaults t…

In my experience, hardware support with drivers is far better with Ubuntu than with any of the 'consumer operating systems'. Display drivers, Nvidia in particular, have been a problem though, which I avoid by just going for integrated graphics (Intel). This worked well since I don't play games, however, then I got into Blender, which really needs a proper GPU (with drivers).

This summer I tried to interest a relative in using a Wacom tablet on their Apple computer. In linux-world you just plug the thing in and the job is done. Yet on the Apple computer I was having to hunt down drivers and install stuff, taking me out of my comfort zone. We didn't get the Wacom tablet to work (it is a decade old) and gave up.

All operating systems will inevitably force their ways of working on you to some extent and it is 'better the devil you know' for most people, myself included. My first OS that 'didn't get in the way' of what I wanted to do was SGI Irix. I think Ubuntu has that aspect of not getting in the way, however, I am confidently able to use the command line to type in installation instructions. Text instructions for installing stuff is brilliant since you can reproduce results consistently with not much more than 'cut and paste' needed. As soon as you move to a consumer OS then this becomes murkier, particularly if you have to use things like 'Homebrew'. An Apple user will quibble with me that this is difficult, but each to their own.

Along the way I have invariably kept the standard Windows installation, to never use it, ever. I thought I would need dual boot to hop into Photoshop, Word or some other Windows application, however, this has proven to not be the case.

The time has come for me to delete those Windows partitions and get my disk space back. In so doing I will also be excluding myself from any of those AI integrations that must be polluting Windows these days.

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

#404

Sure, Evil Microsoft. But Apple is the one that normalized this. ...Like the developer account for mobile ...Like "sideloading" And this is why this things should have been fought much harder from the beginning. These companies are merely copying what the other is getting away with.

This is false, I use one of my Macs without logging in to Apple. Getting Xcode is the only culprit.

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

#405
post #3

'We'll never require you to need an online account to log in to your system' Look how that changed. Windows Recall 'We'll never use this in any bad way whatsoever' Sure thing. Windows 10 goes EOL in 8 days, with the EU forcing Microsoft to give their customer bases security patches. Not anywhere else though, and not in the U.S. What was the end goal with that? Move everybody over to Windows 11; on their EOL page it l…

> Here's the thing, I started up an old iPad last night and the e-mail no longer exists nor can be created, so I can't do a lost password, I can't log in, so I can't install apps, or even format the device without some 'Account Lock' If it has a passcode and you remember the passcode, you should still be able to wipe the device with Apple Configurator? If the situation is that you don't have a passcode, but you do ha…

Just contacting Apple support could maybe solve this.

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

#406
post #300

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhappy when a sleazy corp forces me to give up on 25 years of muscle memory of using my preferred OS, but I'm thankful they gave me the push I needed to rip off the ad/spyware laced Windows Band-Aid that I only need to do once in my life. It's been over a year sinc…

I used Windows since always and switched to Linux two months ago. On one hand I still run into lots of Linuxisms on daily basis and I cannot recommend the system to a non-IT personn - bluetooth crashes, GPU driver crashes, applications crash, devices crash, all that stuff that's always been there. At the same time I have to say that the switch was easier than expected, and last weekend I removed Windows from my drive. I thought I'd keep dual-booting for a while, but no. Wine and Proton are marvelous pieces of software, pure magic. Moreover, I cannot recommend Linux to my parents until it gets MS Office. My parents specifically need MS Office.

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

#407
post #300

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhappy when a sleazy corp forces me to give up on 25 years of muscle memory of using my preferred OS, but I'm thankful they gave me the push I needed to rip off the ad/spyware laced Windows Band-Aid that I only need to do once in my life. It's been over a year sinc…

As a long term Linux desktoppy, I find this a mixed blessing.

I fear Linux will get ruined by the influx of windows runaways. Enterprise managers will start enforcing their braindead ideas. Group policies, DRM, security scanner slowness, ads, they will all start to appear. Banks will start to 'secure' yoyr desktop. Then politicians will come in and require the KDEs of this world to implement chat control-like things. Eternal september awaits.

Linux is still reasonably controlled by the end user. The powers that be only allow that if we are a fringe group. The golden cage to lock down Linux is already built or being built, and letting us keep the key to it is not something that will be tolerated.

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

#408

How likely is it that this is a coincidence with all the pervasive "digital ID" (read: mass surveillance and control at an unprecedented scale) schemes also being discussed recently? As long as WinPE and the core of Windows exists in its current form, there will always be a way to use Windows entirely offline. The modding scene also still exists, and although it's a fraction of what it used to be (the peak of Windows…

As someone who also was a bit of a modder during my young years (exactly that 98/2K/XP and even 7 era), I gave up circa time the 7 was released, and moved to Linux, then macOS, and now (last few years, up to 6, depends on what’s the starting point) back to Linux. First, I think ricing is much more enjoyable, you don’t fight the system for no reason, at least. And second, you still continue contributing to this weird hostile pathetic toxic system, instead of helping others seeking open system embrace Linux. Linux on desktop is the new Windows (meaning both good and bad, but I mean it mostly works for regular people). We just need momentum, and only M$ is to lose here. So what are you waiting for, Windows people? And especially Windows modders. Let that system to be a deserted land, why won’t we?

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

#409

Two weeks ago, after Microsoft reset my default apps twice in a week, I bought an external drive, backed up all my stuff and wiped Windows. I’ve got Linux all over the place, in many cloud envs, and on older hardware. But I finally committed to it on my big, meaty, main desktop. The one I use for coding and banking and accounting. I’m running a Linux distro full-time. I had to hack a few minor hardware things. Nothin…

That's an interesting point. To what extent does AI support make Linux on the desktop more viable? Reminds me of a discussion recently that said something similar, that developing in Rust is easier now that you can have another machine do battle with the borrow checker, haha. To extend, maybe someone could build a "SysAd AI" distribution that administers itself given natural language directions? Let me know if anyone…

I had to fix a kiosk style linux desktop that had suddenly changed its touch input behaviour from touch to cursor today. ChatGPT gave me the steps immediately for troubleshooting, wrote me a udev rule and explained the potential reasons it could have happened and offered to walk me through the process of isolation. I suspect 99% of user problems in Linux can be solved this way.

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

#410
post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I daily drive Ubuntu, the user experience is comparable (in many cases better) to Windows 11. The only sticking point for me is display drivers. HDR on Wayland is barely functional (in my experience), and getting things like hardware accelerated AV1 encoding, full Vulkan API support etc to work has been extremely difficult. Every time I login using a Wayland desktop, only my main monitor is detected and it defaults t…

All of my problem was solved by disabling hybrid graphics and use the dedicated card only. I had not a single bug since then on X11 (I didn’t try Wayland yet, because it was almost completely unusable with hybrid config). The only drawback is battery life, but that wasn’t great even before. I could never reach the ~4 hours, which was possible with Windows. Even with the dedicated card disabled. So, I’m not entirely s…

Hybrid graphics had troubles last spring, but in my case it was fixed around late July. I still launch steam with weird env variables (i don't often change my shortcuts), but i'm not sure it's needed.
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