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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

#681

Post by eviks »

mybackhurtsabit wrote: post #671
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and it comes with free malware! I gotta be honest man, I do not understand someone who pirates executable code. I (and I assume most of the hn audience) am not some starving student with nothing to lose. I would much rather run linux than pirate windows.

I assume you haven’t checked on this since the Windows 7 days, but Massgrave is open source, and the activation logic boils down to about five lines of PowerShell, using only native Windows utilities. I think they even have a tutorial on their website that explains how to perform the activation manually if you want to avoid running their scripts.

Is it 5 lines of PowerShell or 19861 lines of cmd?

https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/b...

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

#682

Post by thewebguyd »

tombert wrote: post #585

I doubt it’s going to happen, but a part of me prays that people will eventually get sick Microsoft’s increasing bullshit and it really can become the Year of the Linux Desktop. Gnome has genuinely gotten pretty great in the last couple years, and I think a lot of former Windows would genuinely like it if they gave it a chance, and virtually any Linux you install will have less tracking bullshit than Windows. I suspe…

I think we'll see a small uptick in Linux desktop usage, but nothing massive. Gamers are one of the biggest windows holdouts, and Linux is much better for that now (outside of kernel-level anti-cheat games, which we should be pushing back on anyway even on Windows - no game should require that level of rootkit to play).

More likely though, it's going to be "Eh, do I really need a laptop?" and we'll see even more people than we do already just using their phones and maybe an iPad.

I already see it with the non-tech employees at my work. Very few even have laptops at home. They have an iPad, maybe, a gaming console, and their phone. Sooo many people do almost all of their computing from their phones now.

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

#683

Post by dartharva »

tombert wrote: post #585

I doubt it’s going to happen, but a part of me prays that people will eventually get sick Microsoft’s increasing bullshit and it really can become the Year of the Linux Desktop. Gnome has genuinely gotten pretty great in the last couple years, and I think a lot of former Windows would genuinely like it if they gave it a chance, and virtually any Linux you install will have less tracking bullshit than Windows. I suspe…

Windows dominates the market because it dominates the enterprise segment. Enterprises demand accountability and servicing, things that philanthropic community projects that are mainstream Linux distros cannot provide, at least at the scale that Microsoft does.

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

#684

Post by eviks »

pshirshov wrote: post #660
k4rnaj1k wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a pirated OS does not sound like a good idea lol. Who knows what could be added during "cracking" of the license.

Nuthing. You could manually reproduce what massgrave does.

How much time would you need to manually reproduce their 20k lines of activation code? And what qualification would you need?

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

#685

Post by lagniappe »

observationist wrote: post #665
Night_Thastus wrote: post #598

My biggest annoyance is that I specifically bought a Windows 11 license, from the MS store, using my MS account. I did this because I assumed that if something went wrong, I would always be able to recover it. I could never 'lose' the key if it was tied to my account. Well unfortunately, MS screwed me. When I upgraded my PC I was apparently supposed to transfer the license before deleting the old PC from my account.…

Companies that cannot run their businesses responsibly at scale should not be allowed to run their business at that scale. If Microsoft can't do it, if Apple, Google, Facebook, X , OpenAI can't do it, then maybe we shouldn't allow companies to operate at scales which inevitably lead to widespread consumer harm. They should be required to provide human customer service, with some sort of legal liability to ensure thei…

>Companies that cannot run their businesses responsibly at scale should not be allowed to run their business at that scale.

The reality of the situation is: If it were enough of a problem that the bad outweighed the good, people wouldn't use it, but yet they still do, so it's not enough of a problem.

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

#686

Post by philipallstar »

observationist wrote: post #665
Night_Thastus wrote: post #598

My biggest annoyance is that I specifically bought a Windows 11 license, from the MS store, using my MS account. I did this because I assumed that if something went wrong, I would always be able to recover it. I could never 'lose' the key if it was tied to my account. Well unfortunately, MS screwed me. When I upgraded my PC I was apparently supposed to transfer the license before deleting the old PC from my account.…

Companies that cannot run their businesses responsibly at scale should not be allowed to run their business at that scale. If Microsoft can't do it, if Apple, Google, Facebook, X , OpenAI can't do it, then maybe we shouldn't allow companies to operate at scales which inevitably lead to widespread consumer harm. They should be required to provide human customer service, with some sort of legal liability to ensure thei…

I guess they don't want Windows to cost $10000 per licence.

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

#687

Post by thewebguyd »

bluetidepro wrote: post #641
Redster wrote: post #631

I know that there are enterprises and individuals who need Windows. I also know that I had been on Windows my whole computing life and made the switch late in 2023 and there's never been a better time to switch to Linux. I could have switched much sooner! I have found my Windows apps for everything work (or have equivalent or better Linux versions) and will soon be switching my non-technical wife over to Linux to avo…

For majority that want to switch but can’t yet, gaming is the biggest pillar still very far behind. Many popular games (and game related apps) don’t work on Linux, sadly. I don’t know if it’s ever going to change either because of it being a chicken or egg scenario where they don’t want to spend the time supporting it cause it’s not enough users, but it’s also not enough users cause it’s not supported.

> I don’t know if it’s ever going to change either because of it being a chicken or egg scenario

We don't even need native games. Proton, when it works, is amazing. Win32 is effectively now the stable ABI that Linux always needed but never had.

The real problem is kernel level anti-cheat, which will never happen on Linux, but more importantly, gamers should be pushing back against it even on Windows. It's invasive. The latest of which you can't even enable virtualization support in Windows if you want the anti-cheat to run, which also means you lose virtualization based security, no WSL, etc. It's completely obnoxious and I hope Microsoft cracks down on it, because if they do then more games will run on Proton.

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

#689

Post by dariusj18 »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #598

My biggest annoyance is that I specifically bought a Windows 11 license, from the MS store, using my MS account. I did this because I assumed that if something went wrong, I would always be able to recover it. I could never 'lose' the key if it was tied to my account. Well unfortunately, MS screwed me. When I upgraded my PC I was apparently supposed to transfer the license before deleting the old PC from my account.…

I had a similar issue recently and was able to convince the AI agent to give me a phone number to talk to a support representative. They manually fixed my accout and key and gtg in a few minutes.

What a PITA it took until I got a human though.

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

#690

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

gloosx wrote: post #324
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't care that a random person can get remote access to it, then no, I don't think you're "losing" anything. The biggest issue is no protection from 0-day security vulnerabilities, which Microsoft patched a lot of in 2025.

So if you run as a standard (non-admin) user, don't expose network services, don't insert random USB devices, and never run untrusted executables or installers, can a random person really get remote access to it? I mean, even if you patch constantly, you are only safe from yesterday exploits — not from the next 0-day, and those keep coming super-often. It seems smarter to focus on hardening the system itself rather t…

I think the chances of a vulnerability being leveraged in your scenario is extremely low. For a machine connected to the network, the longer it goes without patching, the higher the chances of a security incident
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