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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

#901

Post by anigbrowl »

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.

100%

So many business models today are based on rolling over the customer, on the theory that anything with that much momentum is impressive to new buyers.

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

#902

Post by anigbrowl »

lagniappe wrote: post #685
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…

>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.

No, that's not the reality of the situation. You are theorizing a perfect market with no costs of entry or exit. Customer demand for critical systems is inelastic to start with due to technical burden (ie most people are not good enough with computers to casually switch OS), and large vendors work hard to maximize that inelasticity.

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

#903

Post by hbn »

0rdinal wrote: post #351
mythz wrote: 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…

HDR is unusable on Windows too. I finally decided to sell my HDR monitor after like a year because it was a massive pain in the ass from the moment I bought it. One of my biggest wastes of money ever.

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

#904

Post by hbn »

goosedragons wrote: post #853
jama211 wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself, I tried again to switch to Linux last year with standard Ubuntu and had multiple issues, the machine wouldn’t wake from sleep, would lock up with a grey graphics glitched login screen when locked, I tried to upgrade the OS and it broke all my graphics drivers, after I spent another few hours trying to fix it (and seeing a lot of very unfriendly and unwelcoming “help” from the Linux community), and…

Nvidia graphics? How much care did you take in getting a machine for running Linux? Did you get one specifically with that in mind? Or did you slap it on the machine you already had?

Endless raving about how painless and troubleshoot-free Linux is and then you try installing it on your very standard-built PC and face major glaring issues and then get told you're the idiot for not junking your perfectly good GPU from the most popular GPU maker and most valuable company on the planet.

I'm sure it's Nvidia's fault for whatever reason but Linux proselytizers need to stop being so dishonest about how pain-free switching is.

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

#905

Post by qcnguy »

anigbrowl wrote: post #902
lagniappe wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

No, that's not the reality of the situation. You are theorizing a perfect market with no costs of entry or exit. Customer demand for critical systems is inelastic to start with due to technical burden (ie most people are not good enough with computers to casually switch OS), and large vendors work hard to maximize that inelasticity.

By "not good enough" you mean "not motivated enough" which boils down to what the OP said. It's not a big problem in reality for most people.

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

#906

Post by time0ut »

tombert wrote: post #640
time0ut wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been a Linux desktop user for 20+ years. It is incredible how far it has come. There is nothing Microsoft can do that will drive the normies away though. Microsoft knows this and that is why we are where we are.

> It is incredible how far it has come No argument on my end. I have been running Linux since 2011, and so much more stuff is in the “Just Works” category, especially if you have AMD graphics. When I installed NixOS on my Thinkpad about a year ago, it was almost comical how easy it was for me; I had gotten used to having to waste an entire day messing with drivers and fixing issues in 2012-2015, so it felt kind of we…

I have tried switching family members over after malware incidents. The most success was setting my 80 year old grandmother up with Lubuntu. She had no issue picking it up. I don’t think she even really noticed vs Windows. Lasted a few years until she went to an iPad for accessibility reasons.

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

#907

Post by npteljes »

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…

Safety is not binary. One of the most common attacks is an automated probe for vulnerability, whereupon a successful discovery, the machine gets backdoored and joined into a network, awaiting instructions. These botnets, or services built on them are then rented out on the black or grey market. Patching regularly practically prevents this.

The smart thing to do is patching regularly AND having a good security posture. Neither can be given up, really.

Also, even risky things can work for a long time. An individual can go a lifetime of speeding, doing drugs, things like that, and not be majorly impacted. And on the flip side, another individual can have a stroke of bad luck despite their good posture.

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

#909

Post by npteljes »

josefritzishere wrote: post #593

Microsoft is so hostile to their users, it's genuinely surprising they maintain market share.

Goes to show that they don't sell to their users directly. They sell to governments and vendors, and do every trick in the book and invent some more, in order to keep Windows the de facto default PC platform. And have been doing that successfully since their beginnings.

Electronic Health Record software is a similar story. Doctors outright hate these. Yet, prevalent.

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

#910

Post by CrimsonCape »

monooso wrote: post #887
pdonis wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies that cannot run their businesses responsibly at scale should not be allowed to run their business at that scale. The best way to do that would be for all the governments and large corporations that buy Windows machines for their employees to switch to Linux. That would probably end up cheaper in the long run. But nobody wants to sign up to be the one driving the switch. Unless and until that happens, the…

> That would probably end up cheaper in the long run. But nobody wants to sign up to be the one driving the switch. If memory serves, the French government (and various French municipalities) have been actively moving to Linux since the early 2000s. The French police even have their own Linux distribution, GendBuntu [1]. And yes, the reported cost savings are around 40% [2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBun…

They should have gone with GendArch as it kinda makes more sense than GendBuntu.
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