I'd like to thank Microsoft. Their constant bloating and nagging and hostility has finally convinced me to move to Mint and it's been just great. I don't think I'd have done it without their help, but now I'm glad I did and wish I'd done so earlier.
Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
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Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#12No post body was provided.
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#13Satya... WTF?
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#14So how would that work for people who only work in offline networks?
It appears they don't care about those people. Windows is not the product.
If you are not consuming their cloud product AND providing a stream of your telemetry data for them to monetize, you are of no value to MS and so invisible.
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#15On the upside, when Windows 10 is no longer supported I run out of reasons not to go back to Windows 7 like I always wanted.
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#16On the upside, when Windows 10 is no longer supported I run out of reasons not to go back to Windows 7 like I always wanted.
Here's one: Linux is better. A lot better.
If you are worried about gaming or other apps, Win7 won't be much better than Linux (won't have latest DirectX or anything), and may end up far worse by then.
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#17Literally a trap to hand over your encryption keys. Never sign into an operating system with a cloud identity. You should have stopped using windows years ago. There is no excuse, especially thanks to Valve for their work enhancing wine ecosystem and making your games work.
Games may have gotten better on Linux, but that’s not the case with some programs. Usually riddled with obnoxious DRM that throws a fit in a VM or wine like program. That and nvidia woes are the only thing stopping me from using Linux.
The only thing stopping me from using Linux at this point is piss-poor 4k support, combined with the crap market for building your own PC (thanks Bitcoin!)
I just couldn't beat the m1 Air for price/performance last year.
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#18I feel like I see this exact article every year or two and then it always comes out that you can easily get around this with some type of easy loophole. Of course that might still get the majority of people switching to an online account but..... if you are practically giving away an OS for free is that really so bad?
Not that I am saying I support this change personally of course - I would much rather have microsoft give a CLEAR and easy way to set up a "pro" OS without internet. Why am I paying for something that spys on me again?
For a completely legal way to get around this: Get a copy of Windows 10 LTSC 2019 or 2021.
LTSC 2019 is officially supported and updated for 10 years until 2029
LTSC 2021 is officially supported and updated for 5 years until 2027 (confusing I know)
LTSC 2019 IOT is supported even longer but I have not tested it and it may have additional restrictions that make it not useable as a desktop OS (2032)
Microsoft will officially try to steer you away from LTSC by saying it is for embedded devices and whatnot - this is basically just a straight up lie.
LTSC functions much more like Windows 7 in that it gets all of the regular security updates without the yearly giant "feature" updates. Managing it is much easier but you may not get the latest and greatest shiny microsoft new features. I have deployed it extensively in a corporate environment to certain people / situations and not run into any pieces of software that will not work on it.
LTSC also comes fairly stripped down compared to Windows 10 enterprise (a good thing in my opinion). However if you want things like the Windows 10 store its not hard to add it. If you enjoy talking to dumbest of the cousins in the Siri family then you can probably find a way to add Cortana back too :-D . It runs quite lean comparatively and with a few tweaks you can disable almost all Microsoft telemetry.
If you liked Windows 7 then LTSC is the closest you can get to that experience.
LTSC generally is only available to enterprise customers and education - no idea if you can purchase it stand alone. However an easy way to get a legal copy is simply to find someone with a valid school email or take some classes yourself - the microsoft volume licensing center generally gives away almost all of their software completely for free to students (even including their very expensive datacenter hypervisor licenses / server licenses / Config Management).
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#19I'd like to thank Microsoft. Their constant bloating and nagging and hostility has finally convinced me to move to Mint and it's been just great. I don't think I'd have done it without their help, but now I'm glad I did and wish I'd done so earlier.
I've always wanted to see FOSS options become superior to Microsoft's offerings... I have mixed feelings about it happening by MS getting worse more than FOSS getting better. (Although it is both; Linux hardware compatibility is way better than 15 years ago, and software compat via Proton and webapps eating the world has put desktop Linux in a much stronger spot.)
Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
#20I'd like to thank Microsoft. Their constant bloating and nagging and hostility has finally convinced me to move to Mint and it's been just great. I don't think I'd have done it without their help, but now I'm glad I did and wish I'd done so earlier.
+1 for Mint. Couldn't have been an easier transition.