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

extremetech.com

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

#191
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I think it’s as simple as it being a better experience for the type of people who would buy the Home edition. Forcing them to log in with a MS account allows MS to provide a lot of the services people expect using Android or iOS as their primary devices. For one thing, both those devices pretty much require an online account as well. And they contain far more sensitive data. But more importantly, they a…

"I think it’s as simple as it being a better experience for the type of people who would buy the Home edition. ... allows MS to provide a lot of the services people expect using Android or iOS as their primary devices. This. 100 times. The main compute device people as a population are familiar with is the cellphone/tablet, and usage patterns that differ from this are becoming the odd man out. Consumer tech. Commodit…

>We've come a long way from the 1970's.

And going for a full circle. No more personal computers, just terminals connected to corporate systems, which have full control over data and usage.

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

#192
post #153
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…

I'm at a small business that gets maybe 2 dozen new computers a year but line 1 on my setup list is "DO NOT PLUG IN THE ETHERNET CABLE" I can't believe it's come to this...

Surely the 'professional' versions don't have this requirement? I'm quite far from a Windows expert, but at the company I work for the IT folks control all aspects of authentication and maintenance (e.g. patches all come through our own servers, not MS or Apple). They'd tell MS to piss off if they tried to require employees to have MS accounts.

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

#193
post #72
post #34

It is sadly part of a dark pattern called "stickiness". You can dress it up as functionally useful or even important but ultimately it is about companies wanting to create enough of a dependency that you have to continue using them, which is anti-competitive. Gone are the days where you bought something from a shop with no stickiness other than good service brought you back. Now there are far too many Marketing Manag…

> bought something from a shop with no stickiness If you want this you can still have it, you just need to follow a simple rule: Absolutely no non-free non community maintained software ever period.

Free, community maintained software have all sorts of problems too.

Essentially, the problem is that the software is made to fit the developers needs, not the user needs. If they both have the same needs, that's great, if they don't most people are better off with a commercial solution.

Also keep in mind that in most major free software, the "community" is mostly for-profit companies that want the software to fit their own needs and they have no money to spend for anything else.

This is free software working as intended, and in some cases (like Linux), it works really great. But it is not a silver bullet and proprietary software still is the best answer in some cases.

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

#194

Until the Microsoft account was introduced I could never could on authentication working to mount SMB shares. My fear is that Microsoft is going to wreck it all in a fit of mindlessness. I wrote them a letter when they were in danger of impulsively stealing TikTok. So many of us depend on their products that we’d be devastated if they destroyed their ecosystem for no good reason. (Someday Microsoft may need to pick a…

> Until the Microsoft account was introduced I could never could on authentication working to mount SMB shares.

This still does not work properly for me when mapping SharePoint drives. (Since going fully remote this is is the only type of mapped drive I use.) Every once in a while I need to open up the SharePoint URL in Internet Explorer in order to get the drives working.

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

#195
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes you should. They are now pushing the 'your experience is better with a Microsoft account' shit in Visual Studio.

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

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really need Windows? Our family laptop runs Linux, it does Teams for school, MineCraft, Netflix. You could do Office365 from a browser, although I admit, it is less than ideal. But it seems like you are almost at the emotional state make the jump... what's holding you back? I bought a Dell Latitude E5450 for 350 eur about 2 years back. It was used but looked new. It came with Win 10 Pro, which sits on my NAS a…

Minecraft for kids is arguably safer on Bedrock servers and clients with the parental controls managed through the Microsoft account. While Mojang made efforts, the premise of the Java version was unrestricted server community and that remains the dominant paradigm. Not everything should be for kids, not saying “think of the children” and use Win10 or iOS, just commenting on a less known value-add of a Microsoft Acco…

I only ever saw my son make his own worlds locally and we play together on my own server [0], where I have 2 worlds currently. Sometimes Bedrock friends join, I installed GeyserMC for that (as you also mentioned) [1].

It was indeed a great pain to get the girls from next door to join with their Android tablets, it required multiple back and forths between me and their father... So that was why. To be honest it does annoy me that they had to give up so many private details to get the benefits of this "outsourced protection".

Well, my philosophy is to be there, check in on them, educate them about dangerous stuff but also to let them explore. I'll handle more difficult stuff through AdGuard when the time comes. The kid knows not to do weird things on their own. I regularly explain to them that the internet is like a jungle. Don't just wander off without me and my digital machete by your side, I tell them ;)

[0] https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server

[1] https://geysermc.org/

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

#197
post #154

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.

Or a Hackintosh.

Then you'll have Apple spying on you. You just swapped one megacorp for another.

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

#198
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bought something from a shop with no stickiness If you want this you can still have it, you just need to follow a simple rule: Absolutely no non-free non community maintained software ever period.

He said, on a non community maintained forum. --- Do you mint your own hardware as well? The problem with hard rules is there's numerous exceptions when it doesnt make sense to follow, invalidating the "rule" all together.

> The problem with hard rules is there's numerous exceptions when it doesnt make sense to follow, invalidating the "rule" all together

But rules aren't invalidated by exceptions ? The only thing that matters is, trying to follow the rule to the best of your abilities when it gives you enough benefit.

In the end what matters is each independent situation - the rules are only guidelines to get started.

FFS this was understood decades ago with the ISO 9001 revamp where they sanctuarized that obtaining quality products wasn't most efficiently achieved by following bullet point lists religiously, and even then it was already common sense.

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

#199
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm at a small business that gets maybe 2 dozen new computers a year but line 1 on my setup list is "DO NOT PLUG IN THE ETHERNET CABLE" I can't believe it's come to this...

Surely the 'professional' versions don't have this requirement? I'm quite far from a Windows expert, but at the company I work for the IT folks control all aspects of authentication and maintenance (e.g. patches all come through our own servers, not MS or Apple). They'd tell MS to piss off if they tried to require employees to have MS accounts.

No, Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise does the same thing until its bound to a directory.

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

#200
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Twitter also. You can create an account without a phone number but in about 2 weeks it is locked unless you supply and verify one.
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