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Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

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Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#131

Post by soraminazuki »

qwerpy wrote: post #78
inetknght wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really hope it's not primarily so that they can more effectively target your computer for ads. Or upsell some service subscriptions. I hope you're not that naive. Alas, smart people have been shining a light on Microsoft's path for over a decade.

I suspected it was that which is why I spelled it out, but wanted to see if anyone had a more charitable explanation for it.

These companies don't deserve the benefit of doubt. Not after spending decades consistently screwing over users.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#132

Post by sho_hn »

Numerlor wrote: post #79
WD-42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you. The very few games I play work great on Linux. As a professional dev, there's absolutely no reason to choose Windows (or any OS, for that matter) over Desktop Linux at this point. I'm convinced Windows is mainly for people that buy computers at Best Buy and corporate IT that are unfortunately funneled into the ecosystem (hats off salute to all you).

I'm a dev using Windows, tried Linux multiple times for a couple of months and it always felt like it was getting in my way in daily usage. Dev experience is usually at worst the same as Linux when you use wsl as you don't really need more than the terminal

OK, I'm coming from Linux, but I have to say my experience has been the opposite.

I have a semi-complex app I've decided to port to Windows (it's so far on Linux and MacOS and configures/debugs/tests servo motors on serial and CAN busses), and after a couple of days I've been unable to make any sane workflow work without installing three seperate half-assed copies of Linux userspace (Git for Windows w/ its bash install, cygwin and wsl2) and choco on top to install more Linux/Unix-originated stuff. It's a lot like MacOS and needing to fiddle with homebrew, except worse and you need four of them.

Let me give you an example: I have a serial device connected to an SBC mini computer that I want to interface with from my dev PC, so I want to proxy that serial port over tcp to Windows and make it available as a COM port. On Linux this is trivial to do using socat, or ser2net+socat.

On Windows, plenty of similar tools exist. Usually you need two of them, one to make a virtual pair of COM ports, and another one to pipe a TCP socket connection into one end of the pair. So far, so good.

Except all of the utilities, drivers, etc. I've tried have just plain not worked, and I've tried a good half dozen. Often their last version is from somewhere in the 2007-2012 time frame, and something no longer works on Windows 11. I think a lot of devs of tools like this just nope'd out when Microsoft started enforcing signing and pushed the Store model harder, and moved to Linux or Mac.

In the end I had to write my own thing for the COM pair and run socat in cygwin.

And I've jumped through a few hoops like this.

I'm sure if all you do is need a place to run npm from and the rest of your stuff is all in the browser, the OS barely matters. But for native dev, Windows feels dead and barren, and fully reliant on the Linux ecosystem to be productive at this point. It's where all the reliable and well-maintained stuff comes from, whereas Windows-native tools are a ghost town of abandoned, frequently closed-source binaries.

The many years Windows couldn't make their minds up between the managed code .NET stack and native C/C++ APIs, and one was incomplete while the other bitrotted away, have really taken their toll, I think.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#133

Post by z3ratul163071 »

WD-42 wrote: post #52
glenstein wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's bald -faced lie but I wouldn't disagree that it's bold. The idea that you need to confirm you're connected to the internet and that creating a Microsoft account is merely for that purpose is preposterous on its face. Not that I was ever a regular on windows, but I think I've at least found there to be a necessity to be on windows for certain desirable games or for PC apps. So I've always kind of recognized…

I'm with you. The very few games I play work great on Linux. As a professional dev, there's absolutely no reason to choose Windows (or any OS, for that matter) over Desktop Linux at this point. I'm convinced Windows is mainly for people that buy computers at Best Buy and corporate IT that are unfortunately funneled into the ecosystem (hats off salute to all you).

What a time to be alive. I used to be certain Linux will always be crap for the desktop. And here I am now typing this on Wayland KDE :)

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#134

Post by kcb »

zamalek wrote: post #120
tapoxi wrote: post #26

I have a recent (2024) Gigabyte AMD motherboard and Windows 11 refuses to recognize the Ethernet NIC or onboard wifi. I can't load the drivers during setup either because they're .exe installers and it wants .inf files or something. I got mad and installed Fedora Kinoite, which somehow just worked out of the box. My games all worked too. I've been mulling over installing a Windows partition for the inevitable game wi…

Battlefield 1 (I think) worked roughly two years ago, which is when I last played it. I think it was Lutris is that got it rolling for me. Not to mention the usual SDL_VIDEODRIVER=windows,x11 that us required for most anticheats. Give it a try IMO. I check ProtonDB support prior to purchasing games, and I very rarely have to ignore a game. Edit: just checked and, wow, Linux support has been explicitly disabled.

Fairly recently they rolled out "proper" anticheat to BF 1 and V. Sucks that they don't support linux anymore but the games were also pretty unplayable with the overrun of hackers previously.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#135

Post by KeplerBoy »

WD-42 wrote: post #63

Windows set up is actually insane, I did it in a VM recently to test my app on Windows. I would say not only does it require a Microsoft account but you also have to agree to (at least) 3 EULAs about sharing/selling your data that are unskippable. Pretty sure it also makes you set your ad preferences. Absolutely insane for an OS, I don't know how people put up with it as a daily driver.

It absolutely sets your ad preferences. It does so by asking something along the lines of "do you agree to personalized ads, of you opt out, you won't get fewer ads they'll just be less relevant to you".

I have no idea why we accept ads in a paid product in the first place.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#136

Post by int_19h »

WD-42 wrote: post #92
hatthew wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do all my development work on linux. I have a self-hosted linux server. I used ubuntu as my main desktop computer OS for a full year, and in that time I struggled with compatibility issues, games that wouldn't run as well as people said they would, driver update issues, necessary tools that simply don't exist on linux, and various configuration failures that simply don't exist on windows. Saying that you can game o…

I mean the steam deck is proof you can game on Linux. I hate to say it, but it sounds like you might just need to try harder.

It depends a lot on what you play. E.g. multiplayer stuff that requires online anti-cheat rarely works well.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#137

Post by transcriptase »

michaelt wrote: post #75
qwerpy wrote: post #15

What is MS's motivation to push so strongly to have everyone on a Microsoft account? I really hope it's not primarily so that they can more effectively target your computer for ads. Or upsell some service subscriptions.

It's so they can: 1. More effectively target you for ads 2. Upsell cloud service subscriptions 3. Cross-promote other Microsoft services, your windows account means you already have an xbox/skype/minecraft/whatever account. 4. Provide extra features, like syncing your tabs between devices and backing up your passkeys to the cloud. 5. More closely emulate Android and iOS, major and successful rivals of Windows. 6. Kee…

In other words some upper management cunt has a PowerBI KPI card that shows the % of windows installs where a MS account is being used, and since it’s not at 100% they’re putting pressure on everyone under them in the org to force everyone into the fold.

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#138

Post by cyberax »

hippich wrote: post #98
falcor84 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sales-wise it seems to mostly be driving people towards macbooks, but yes, also linux.

Can you fully use MacBook (install apps, updates) without online account?

Yes. But you'll be locked out of XCode-based development infrastructure (which arguably is a plus).

Re: Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account

#140

Post by int_19h »

mholt wrote: post #6

How can you set up / use Windows without an Internet connection? Surely that's not an unsupported use case anymore, is it? There's gotta be plenty of places where Internet connectivity is not available or is restricted.

It has been unsupported since the last major Win11 update.
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