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Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

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Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#321

Post by newtonianrules »

Telaneo wrote: post #157
opan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some common hold-ups you know of? I don't program but have still used GNU/Linux on my main machine for over a decade now. It can browse the web, play games, listen to music, watch TV and movies, you can draw, you can edit video, you can stream to Twitch.

Adobe. Games with kernel anti-cheat. Office 365 (I think this mostly applies to overly complex Excel spreadsheets with lots of macros? There are also a bunch of people here who say LibreOffice has bad UI, or that they (somehow?) have documents that are complex enough that LibreOffice can't display them properly. Openoffice is somewhat better on those fronts, but neither are good enough if it's for actual work).

> Games with kernel anti-cheat.

This one’s easy, if they don’t support Steam Deck (basically a proxy for Linux support), I don’t play them.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#322

Post by brookst »

seethishat wrote: post #307
daemin wrote: post #296

One thing I disagree with the article about is that drives should not be encrypted by default. For the vast majority of people an encrypted drive is just data loss lying in wait. I prefer to use non-encrypted drives so I have the option of popping out the disk and reading it from another system with ease, which also means that I can recover files from drives of otherwise dead systems just as easily. This is a trade o…

It's really about personal privacy. Your computer is likely to be stolen and sold. If you don't want others reading your email, viewing your pictures, seeing your tax returns, etc. then you should encrypt the drive. I call this "The Pawn Shop Threat Model" ;) And, IME it is likely to happen.

For the typical user, this is far far far more likely to happen than that they would “pop out” the drive and read it in another machine.

Defaults should be safe for most users. Power users are exactly the people who can deal with changing a setting. It’s constantly surprising to me when technical people insist that defaults should be optimized for technical people.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#323

Post by kubik369 »

daemin wrote: post #296

One thing I disagree with the article about is that drives should not be encrypted by default. For the vast majority of people an encrypted drive is just data loss lying in wait. I prefer to use non-encrypted drives so I have the option of popping out the disk and reading it from another system with ease, which also means that I can recover files from drives of otherwise dead systems just as easily. This is a trade o…

Agreed, I have personally come to the same conclusion. I do not encrypt the drives in my home desktops and servers so that the recovery/migration is easier when the time comes. The risk of someone stealing my desktops from my home is very low and the impact of someone going through my family photos or Linux ISOs is nothing. I roll my eyes at my friend when he explains the solutions for how to input the encryption password when his server restarts.

At the time of writing, there are already other replies to this comment how "it's mandatory today to encrypt drives" without any qualifiers. I am growing more and more frustrated by people who try to force security measures like this "because it is more secure that way" without first taking a look at the risks, impacts and associated costs. I think they simply force these security measures on others to feel good about their choices.

It was a breath of fresh reasonability when I found out that apt intentionally uses only HTTP instead of blanket HTTPS everywhere because the packages are signed, therefore they can be verified by the client, and using HTTP allows easier caching with cache proxies and such.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#324

Post by yabones »

daemin wrote: post #296

One thing I disagree with the article about is that drives should not be encrypted by default. For the vast majority of people an encrypted drive is just data loss lying in wait. I prefer to use non-encrypted drives so I have the option of popping out the disk and reading it from another system with ease, which also means that I can recover files from drives of otherwise dead systems just as easily. This is a trade o…

Obviously "physical access is full access", but it's shockingly easy to break into a Windows box if you have access to the unencrypted drive. I learned with I was a teenager how to use the recovery partition to mount the C: drive, then copy "cmd.exe" to "utilman.exe" or "sethc.exe" and get an instant root shell on the login page. Takes about 2-3 minutes, can be done in the time somebody leaves their laptop to go to the bathroom at Starbucks.

To me that's the main thing about disk encryption, it's to stop a nasty rootkit from being installed trivially as much as it is about stopping the guy at the pawn shop from getting your tax info. Whether you're on macos, linux, or windows, it's really quite easy to fully compromise a machine if you have hands on it.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#325

Post by memcg »

Jordan-117 wrote: post #49
password4321 wrote: post #34

I was in a hurry trying to log into my kid's Minecraft account, wound up clicking something to associate it with the Windows account... now the PC is in restricted mode and I'm having a hard time restoring the previously associated Microsoft account (among other things, have to ask permission to open the browser and approve the requests logging in on my phone)! Everything online says to use the option to switch to a…

I ran into this trying to set up a new Dell laptop for my mom. It shipped to her in "S mode", meaning that among other things I couldn't install arbitrary software from the web. I assumed there'd be some straightforward way to disable it (even if it might be a little buried to discourage normies). But after several hours of searching through tutorials and mucking about in Windows settings, the command prompt, BIOS, a…

https://www.google.com/search?q=Windows+also+in+%22S+mode%22 "Switching Out of S Mode If you find that S mode is too restrictive, you can switch out of it for free. However, according to Microsoft Support, doing this is a one-way street—once you leave S mode, you cannot go back without completely reinstalling Windows.To switch out of S mode:Open the Start Menu and click Settings.Navigate to System > Activation.Look for the Switch out of S mode section.Click Go to the Store.On the page that opens in the Microsoft Store, click Get"

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#326

Post by microgpt »

kubik369 wrote: post #323
daemin wrote: post #296

One thing I disagree with the article about is that drives should not be encrypted by default. For the vast majority of people an encrypted drive is just data loss lying in wait. I prefer to use non-encrypted drives so I have the option of popping out the disk and reading it from another system with ease, which also means that I can recover files from drives of otherwise dead systems just as easily. This is a trade o…

Agreed, I have personally come to the same conclusion. I do not encrypt the drives in my home desktops and servers so that the recovery/migration is easier when the time comes. The risk of someone stealing my desktops from my home is very low and the impact of someone going through my family photos or Linux ISOs is nothing. I roll my eyes at my friend when he explains the solutions for how to input the encryption pas…

I used to think that and then the authorities raided my house (for bullshit reasons that had nothing to do with me). Now I encrypt everything.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#327

Post by esalman »

Agentlien wrote: post #316
pjmlp wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asha is doing some good decisions, or it seemed so until the XBOX Reset blog post. However beyond XBOX, Microsoft is one of the biggest publishers as per amount of owned studios especially since ABK acquisition, so even when XBOX is doing bad, Microsoft Publishing is doing great.

That doesn't seem to address my comment. I was specifically asking why esalman wrote > In the last couple of weeks there's been some good news coming through for Xbox Since I wasn't sure what good news they were referring to.

Mainly they admitted that they lost substantial amount of subscribers when they hiked game pass prices last year.

They also gave away free Xbox consoles to attendees at Xbox fanfest.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#328

Post by NBJack »

Grombobulous wrote: post #283
cm2187 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The computer is not exposed to the WAN (behind a firewall), the main way it could get infected is via a vulnerability in a browser, but these do get updated. And OS updates don't really protect you from malware in executables you install anyway.

The other potentially obvious question is why bother using an OS that’s out of support when Linux is so good? I left Windows 11. The last straw wasn’t Microsoft accounts or Windows updates. I actually thought the OS was fine, most OS updates actually added great new features, and anything I considered an annoyance was easy to disable permanently. Toss your Windows 11 ISO into Rufus and disabling things like Microsoft…

Love Linux, but Nvidia drivers are still shit on it. I'm not willing to take a performance hit for the convenience. Which I guess is a little ironic, given you left Windows over AMD driver issues.

The last time I had instability on a Nvidia card in Windows turned out to be a faulty card I had to RMA.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#329

Post by hilariously »

ptx wrote: post #297
hilariously wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you probably have is a component of O365 as an updater installed - check your programs and features because msft bundled this awhile back and once its removed it will stop the update treadmill.

Didn't they create Windows Installer (i.e. MSI) originally to meet the needs of Microsoft Office? And now they have MSIX to replace it, both of them built into Windows, but they still need a third installer system for Office, which is now also apparently built into Windows?

That's just the installers that you know about.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#330

Post by Narishma »

mDyJzDPmBdG wrote: post #275
LtWorf wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still bugging me about windows 11

Maybe disable Secure Boot/TPM in BIOS? No more nag screens when PC doesn't support Windows 11.

Not true. I have an old laptop with no TPM and it still bugs me to upgrade to Windows 11, even though it doesn't meet the hardware requirements.
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