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I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

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Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#171
post #117

I know the post is about Windows 11 but I installed Windows 10 for someone on a laptop about 2 months ago and it had the most crazy dark pattern I've ever seen to be able to proceed past the installation screen without a Microsoft account. Short of not connecting to the internet first the only way I saw where it was possible to create an offline account was to first attempt to sign in using an incorrect password with…

Microsoft really is one of the worst examples in the dark pattern department that I've ever seen. Same with their email service, where you can register an account without issues and after a few weeks of use I was presented with an unskippable input field for my phone number. Don't want to give MS your phone number? Too bad, better hope you don't need those emails anymore.

Google does that too.

Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#172

This is really a dealbreaker for me, much more than the TPM and recent processor stuff. There must be some workaround :( Edit: Thanks @yourusername, I had missed the part where it's only for the home edition. I'm glad there is still a way.

Win11 pro will not be subject to this requirement.

Does it matter? MS are back to their old tricks one way or another. Makes me wonder if I should ditch C# and ASP.Net.

Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not. Apple does encourage setting up/associating an Apple ID account, it is not a requirement.

God damn it how many times I have to say it: it's not required on Windows as well! You click cancel, then click tiny link at bottom to create local account. You are talking about things you have no idea about man.

You can say it however many times you want, but you are wrong. You would have been right had you been talking about Windows 10 Home ~1-2 years ago.

But today, Windows 10 Home only gives you the option to login with a local account if you are offline (no cable, no WiFi) or you fail to login to an MS account multiple times. Only in one of those cases do they give you a small, relatively hidden option to use the local account.

Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#175
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Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#176

I wiped a brand new Windows laptop just last week and installed Linux because Windows 'S' Mode wouldn't let me install Firefox without a Windows account. Very happy with the change to linux and I don't have to worry about accidentally saving personal documents to the OneDrive cloud. Product companies should take note, I'd probably own a few more electronics if they didn't require that consumers 'create an account' or…

You can get out of "S Mode", a feature which is absurdly hidden in the MS Store [1]. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of...

I think what the parent comment was aiming at is that you need a Windows account to follow that. I don't think you can use the store without an account, therefore not able to escape the S mode, therefore not able to install Firefox.

Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#177
If you login with a Microsoft account, what is your home directory name? Does it have an @ symbol in it? Do you then have to type that in every time you want to access a file at the command line?

> dir C:\Users\giantsfan123@yahoo.com\Downloads

Seems ridiculous to me.

Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#178

If you use Windows and assume you will have any form of privacy or control over the operating system, you are going to have a bad time. Switch to Linux or be okay with Microsoft spying on you. Those are the choices.

Well, there is MacOS, but that would probably require new hardware.

MacOS is the uncontested king of spying. It literally logs every single executable you run, when you run it, and where you run it from. And it shares this data with no court order as part of PRISM.

https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/

Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep an eye out for games supported on Proton (Steam's Wine facilitation) on protondb.com. In a mere five years gaming on Linux went from a solid selection of native games, to those, plus an impressive amount of high profile titles that just work out of the box (often with better performance on Linux). Of course there may be one or two titles that tie you to Windows, or perhaps multiplayer specific gaming related sof…

"just work out of the box" is an overstatement. I ran Manjaro for about half a year recently, including using it for gaming. Very few games actually worked out of the box for me, including games with so called "native" Linux support. I ran into multiple games with "official" Linux support that were simply broken or became broken by an update. Some of those that weren't broken had significant performance issues (that…

Many Linux games are only tested on Ubuntu. I personally haven't had more issues running Linux native games on Ubuntu than Windows native games on Windows.

Playing games on Windows often requires fiddling as well. Either having to lock the mouse to one monitor, fiddling with V-sync and FPS limits (often only possible through graphics card drivers, launch arguments or text config files), disabling Windows malware scanning, fiddling with Windows compatibility settings for older games, ...

Admittedly I now dual-boot to Windows to play videogames, but that's not because of faults in native Linux games, just the reduced selection.

Re: I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

#180

If you use Windows and assume you will have any form of privacy or control over the operating system, you are going to have a bad time. Switch to Linux or be okay with Microsoft spying on you. Those are the choices.

I have to second this. The questions one has to answer:

What price do I set on my privacy and control? vs What price do I want to pay for inconveniences?

Privacy is a value (abstract) and inconvenience is a concrete experience (concrete). Many people find it easier to reason about concrete experiences then about abstract notions.

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