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Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

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Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#101

Post by yandie »

Nokinside wrote: post #42

As a Linux user I have kept Windows 7 & 8 partitions in my laptop and workstation disks for years because there used to be time where you needed Windows in the work for some programs to work and some documents to open. Windows 10 upgrade push made me to realize that that time passed a long time ago. Last time I booted to Windows for other reason than playing a game was seven years ago. LibreOffice works well with MS…

I develop mostly on Linux (EC2 instance), but my email and documents are still on Windows. Excel still beats LibreOffice in terms of data analysis (yes, we use other tools such as Jupyter as well, but sometimes Excel is an easy route to communicate with other business people).

Also I use two massive 27-inch screens at work. My co-worker Ubuntu boxes have difficulties driving them properly (probably driver issues, manufacturer's fault). Also text rendering is still subpar on Ubuntu.

Windows 10, IMO, provides many nice aspects in terms of UI experience. Not that I'm gonna start developing on Windows in any foreseeable future

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#103

Post by cheshire137 »

scholia wrote: post #10
pjc50 wrote: post #9

And people wonder why some of us haven't upgraded from Windows 7. Win10 tries really hard to make you log into your desktop with your Live Account credentials - you can't use the store without this. Whereas if it were just leaking a local login it would be much less critical.

But if you upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7, your existing log-on (which has no Live account connection) continues exactly as before.... It's not really a surprise if an app store needs an account. Are there any that don't?

It doesn't work smoothly in all cases, though. My existing local account persisted after upgrading in-place from Windows 7 to Windows 10, but not all of my apps worked afterward. The Sims 3, for example, would no longer run on my local account. I had to start using the Live account and reinstall some apps as that user to get them to work again.

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#104

Post by oolongCat »

bsilvereagle wrote: post #53
Nokinside wrote: post #42

As a Linux user I have kept Windows 7 & 8 partitions in my laptop and workstation disks for years because there used to be time where you needed Windows in the work for some programs to work and some documents to open. Windows 10 upgrade push made me to realize that that time passed a long time ago. Last time I booted to Windows for other reason than playing a game was seven years ago. LibreOffice works well with MS…

> Windows has lost it's grip for good. For your listed use case of gaming & document creation. There are a lot of niche applications that are Windows only. All major CAD platforms, a decent chunk of FEA packages, hardware vendor software, etc. At the professional level, Windows still has quite the grip.

The biggest reason why windows still has that grip vs linux is hardware based.

Try installing Ubuntu on a brand new laptop. Its just not something a non technical user can deal with. I am sure a good share of us here on HN has, at-least one relative who calls us because the "internet is broken" imagine them trying to deal with something like ubuntu on a brand new computer.

I like to think this is partially our fault as consumers, we need to actually do more to demand hardware vendors to support Linux. Especially laptop manufacturers.

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#105

Post by marcosdumay »

deviate_X wrote: post #37
Kenji wrote: post #2

tl;dr: Simply accessing a website with Edge leaks the user name and password hash to the attacker site. They mention that this is also default behaviour in Spartan, Internet Explorer, Outlook (though I do not know how effectively it can be delivered to something like Outlook). Works on up to date Windows 10 and Edge (there is an online test if you're vulnerable). If you don't use the listed software, you're probably…

I'd be interested to know, how easy is it to actually break the hash of the password-code

Why would you need to? The hash is enough to give you access to any NTLM service.

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#106

Post by NOSHSHNACKERS »

tclover wrote: post #24
pjc50 wrote: post #9

And people wonder why some of us haven't upgraded from Windows 7. Win10 tries really hard to make you log into your desktop with your Live Account credentials - you can't use the store without this. Whereas if it were just leaking a local login it would be much less critical.

Using windows 10 since it came out, never opened Windows Store, not even once.

Windows store is for Minecraft only. It cost them 2.5 billion dollars for me to care.

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#107

Post by ctrl-j »

Sylos wrote: post #95
toxican wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even the idea that Linux is a solid alternative to Windows for gaming is still a joke. It's immeasurably better than it was even just 5 years ago, but outside of Valve, indie devs or smaller studios, we're not seeing a lot of linux ports. And when we do they seem clunkier, somehow. And sometimes I just want to pop into some obscure resource management game from 2006 without sacrificing a goat and praying to W…

I wouldn't say, it's a solid alternative for everyone, but for some people, it can definitely be. I for example like indie games. As a result, and probably with a bit of luck, 80% of my Steam-library had Linux-support when I jumped into Linux. And, for a game from 2006, you'll probably have to pray to the Windows-compatibility-mode gods at this point, too. I actually wouldn't be surprised, if it worked better under W…

> And, for a game from 2006, you'll probably have to pray to the Windows-compatibility-mode gods at this point, too. I actually wouldn't be surprised, if it worked better under WINE...

That's just not true. I've got plenty of games from 2006 and earlier than run just as good as they originally did. Sure Oblivion crashes, but it did in 2006. Half-Life 2 runs pretty darn well. Company of heroes? Yep. Dawn of War and the expansions? Sure.

In fact, my overall gaming experience on windows 10 is far better than it was on windows xp and vista. Less overall crashing, and I never get bluescreens any more.

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#108

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Nokinside wrote: post #42

As a Linux user I have kept Windows 7 & 8 partitions in my laptop and workstation disks for years because there used to be time where you needed Windows in the work for some programs to work and some documents to open. Windows 10 upgrade push made me to realize that that time passed a long time ago. Last time I booted to Windows for other reason than playing a game was seven years ago. LibreOffice works well with MS…

Congrats on being happy about your choice of operating system. What does that have to do with this article?

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#109

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ralphc wrote: post #99
tclover wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using windows 10 since it came out, never opened Windows Store, not even once.

I've poked around in there. Think of live tiles as the latest version of desktop gadgets. I installed the weather channel free app, I now see local weather when I hit start.

The MSN Weather app is preinstalled with Windows 10, and has the same basic capabilities. And since you don't need to install it, doesn't require you sign into a Microsoft account. (I actually like setting up this app on enterprise users' start menu, it's a nice extra. And they don't have Microsoft accounts connected.)

The built-in weather app and tile is solid enough that I find people downloading a third party one kinda surprising.

Re: Microsoft Live Account Credentials Leaking from Windows 8 and Above

#110

Post by Yhippa »

Nokinside wrote: post #42

As a Linux user I have kept Windows 7 & 8 partitions in my laptop and workstation disks for years because there used to be time where you needed Windows in the work for some programs to work and some documents to open. Windows 10 upgrade push made me to realize that that time passed a long time ago. Last time I booted to Windows for other reason than playing a game was seven years ago. LibreOffice works well with MS…

As a consultant I find Windows everywhere. A lot of big companies have their end-user computing platforms managed by a big vendor like Dell or HP. The typical attachments passed around in email at BigCorp is probably going to be an Excel, Word, or Powerpoint document.

Personally I don't use Windows anymore but it seems like it's going to take a lot of work to get rid of the Windows platform out of commodity IT.

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