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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

#871

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.…

Somehow my decade plus expired MSDN licensed Windows keys are still working like champs across multiple machine activations. I think at this point if they stopped working I'd just drop Windows altogether.

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

#872

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 people will sooner just start hard breaking Windows ISOs just to get rid of MS's garbage (arguably already the case if you use Rufus, which customizes the OOBE setup to already reject checks and tracking if you tick the boxes. They also have a checkbox to iirc disable the TPM check that's killing a lot of older device support because there's nothing in W11 that actually relies on a TPM, it's just an artificia…

> I think people will sooner just start hard breaking Windows ISOs

Hasn't it always been the case? Nobody buy licenses besides companies right?

My uncle taught me how to torrent ~20 years ago, he was already cracking stuff for the whole family, he passed away but his legacy lives through me, I have never seen or heard about anyone buying a windows license in my entire life

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

#873

Why is _anyone_ still using Windows?

* Large creativity software.

* Windows software development.

* Games.

* Corporate software.

Even if Windows dies now, I'll use it for 10+ years more. There's no alternative for me.

And after 10 years since the death of Windows, I'll be on Mac, not on Linux. Again, no alternative.

Now, if I was exclusively a web dev or something, I'd totally consider moving to Linux. But I'm not.

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

#874

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.…

Join the club. They 'stole' three Minecraft accounts from me. I tried their migration tool separately and all they were able to tell me was that old chestnut, "something happened".

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

#875
Does the Common [Wo]Man have any control over any of our own shit anymore?

I just got an iPhone 17. I travel often and have a bunch of SIMs and eSIMs from various countries, with varying periods of validity.

With the physical SIMs, I can just pop them into the new phone and still use them for a month or two more just fine. (I specifically got a Singapore region variant with a SIM tray AND eSIM support just for this)

But with the eSIMs, it goes for "approval" through the carriers, some of whom demand me to update my ID with them before they can allow an eSIM to be used on a new phone.

When Apple announced going eSIM only in the US and other draconian countries, I thought nothing of it. Now I see how bad it can be...

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

#876
post #809

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...

Battlefield's anti-cheat isn't supported in Proton/Wine, so you're stuck with Windows there.

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

#877
post #813
post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

Sadly, probably not, according to "Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?"[0] - linked from the Bazzite website.

[0] https://areweanticheatyet.com

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

#878

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…

> the year of the linux desktop

At least on the gaming side, this is happening verrrrry slowly. It's almost entirely driven by the Steam Deck, which has around a 30% market share for linux users running steam. Since last year linux usage is up a solid percentile, and windows is down a similar amount. OSX and Linux both are making slow but steady progress against Windows' market share.

I don't think there will ever be a year of the linux desktop, but there might be a decade of slow transition towards it.

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

#879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching costs a thousand plus dollars, or you can install this on your existing machine.

If it were only about money, Linux would’ve taken over 20 years ago.

Good thing then no one implied it was only about money. But yes, saving a grand or two is very important to the vast majority of people.

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

#880
post #850

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…

If customers just start bugging Microsoft devs directly as though they are customer support (which…technically they should be since they built the product) then maybe productivity would grind to a halt. When all the MBAs running the show start seeing all their JIRA dashboards full bad news then perhaps they’ll think twice? Heck if the McDonald’s CEO and family were required by law to eat their own McDonald’s product…

>>>Heck if the McDonald’s CEO and family were required by law to eat their own McDonald’s product for 80%+ of daily caloric/macro intake, then we would probably see things change quickly.

Hamurabbi's code: An architect, or equivalent next of kin, was put to death , if the building he had built killed the owner, or a kin of the owner.

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