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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

#811

Post by wtallis »

Fischgericht wrote: post #744
pazimzadeh wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was impressively delusional. > having a standard on menu structure, a standard for all UI controls etc You mean all the stuff apple brought to personal computers? By the way, you can use a Mac (and iPhone) without an Apple ID and there's no sign that this is changing.

Facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

In what way do you think that's relevant? Large portions of that standard had already been abandoned in the Windows 95 era. Nowadays, approximately nobody uses Shift-Insert for Paste, and most laptop users wouldn't even know where to find an Insert key without hunting for it.

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

#812

Post by wing-_-nuts »

throwawaygmbno wrote: post #673
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.

If you are worried about malware from your pirated content you are going to the wrong websites. The good ones are hard to get on and have severe consequences for the uploader and whoever invited them.

However severe those consequences are, I'm sure it's not 'cryptolocker hard drive' or worse 'lose hundreds of thousands from my brokerage account' severe. I am happy to pay for my bits. It's wild to me this is somehow a controversial opinion on a board supposedly populated with well paid software engineers.

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

#813

Post by pwn0 »

cheeze wrote: post #809
jimbo808 wrote: post #661

There's never been a better time to switch to Linux. For the longest time I was using Windows on my personal machine (for gaming), and MacOS for work. Not sure why, but one day I decided to try out dual booting Kubuntu (KDE Plasma + Ubuntu), and haven't touched a Windows machine since. Using MacOS feels bad now. I don't see myself ever willingly installing Windows again. MacOS is unfortunately something I still have…

>for gaming How do you handle the "for gaming" aspect? I'd love to move to Linux but Battlefield is about to release and that's what my friends are going to play, so...

bazzite.gg

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

#814

Post by bunderbunder »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #704
observationist wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple has customer service you can call and speak to a person.

Your Apple tax dollars at work.

No, really. They're not perfect, and as time goes on I keep agonizing more and more about whether they're worth the money. But also, I've had some amazing customer support from Apple employees over the years, and I at least have to concede that the money for those people's salaries has to come from somewhere.

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

#815

Post by tombert »

gregoryl wrote: post #775
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I so badly want to jump ship entirely, but there's several things holding me back. I do music production as a hobby and Ableton Live doesn't play nice with Linux. In fact it seems anything that is resource intensive without native linux support has some issues. I'm also an MS stack developer, so things like Visual Studio Pro aren't available (although I've been using Cursor IDE more and more these days). Lastly I hav…

Switch to Rider. It takes a second to adjust, but you'll end up with a better understanding of dotnet in general. re. Games, are you sure proton won't work? I've got ~1400 games on steam, and only a handful have serious issues with proton.

Rider is pretty solid.

I did F# for years in Visual Studio Pro, and I feel like getting used to Rider on Mac took about twenty minutes.

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

#816

Post by bunderbunder »

b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #804
observationist wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How can the government regulate companies into providing good customer service when they can't even provide good customer service to their citizens?

They don't.

What you do is have a real capitalist system with decent antitrust protections and real market competition instead a crony capitalist system where oligopolies can easily push regulators and legislators around.

And then, once you have enabled consumers to vote with their money, they will.

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

#817

Post by ZeroConcerns »

Sesse__ wrote: post #761
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #589

So, yeah, this whole thing is a bit silly, and also discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45497384 (and possibly elsewhere). My TL;DR: a. Get a Microsoft 365 subscription, so you can set up Entra ID and avoid the 'consumer' account nonsense; b. It would sure be nice if the EU DMA would also be applied to this obviously monopolistic situation; c. Do, however, note that there are exactly zero Linux…

How is a forced Microsoft business cloud account better than a forced Microsoft personal cloud account, really? (Just for the reference, joining the computer to a non-cloud AD does _not_ remove the requirement for a Microsoft account during installation)

[flagged]

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

#818

Post by bitwize »

tombert wrote: post #806
bitwize wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future of desktop Linux is in a Windows-hosted VM, and some configurations (Home) might not allow even that. We're a few years out from machines that, by law, cannot run an alternative OS on bare metal. As it is, Linux only runs on bare metal because Microsoft, the sole Secure Boot key authority for almost all OEMs, deigns to allow it.

I would think it’s in Microsoft’s best interest to keep it technically possible to install Linux on bare metal, if only to stave off potential anti-trust lawsuits. They would likely just make it very difficult.

Maybe, but the permissible versions of Linux will be certain specific allowlisted distro images from major vendors.

I'm basing this on Brazil's "Felca law", that contains stipulations similar to the UK's age-verification act, but extends to end-user operating systems, which must also implement auditable and secure age checks and access controls for minors. Presumably only operating systems that tie user accounts to online accounts for which a government ID is required, much like Windows 11, would be allowed.

Anyway, Microsoft is still trying to make ARM-based "PCs" happen, like "fetch". Per Microsoft's guidelines, ARM-based Windows "PCs" cannot disable Secure Boot and cannot allow addition of user-supplied signing keys, unlike x86-based systems which must allow these things; in short, the ARM systems boot Windows and only Windows. Microsoft gonna Microsoft, and if their Microsofting on this leads anywhere, it's toward a PC ecosystem locked down in its entirety.

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

#819

Post by lyu07282 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #816
b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the government regulate companies into providing good customer service when they can't even provide good customer service to their citizens?

They don't. What you do is have a real capitalist system with decent antitrust protections and real market competition instead a crony capitalist system where oligopolies can easily push regulators and legislators around. And then, once you have enabled consumers to vote with their money, they will.

Perhaps some day we could try something other than fixing the problems of capitalism with more capitalism?

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

#820

Post by Sesse__ »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #817
Sesse__ wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a forced Microsoft business cloud account better than a forced Microsoft personal cloud account, really? (Just for the reference, joining the computer to a non-cloud AD does _not_ remove the requirement for a Microsoft account during installation)

[flagged]

Hello ad hominem. (I am not angry. You seem to be very much into telling people “Get well soon”, though.)
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