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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

#211

I hate it, not because it requires an account, but because Microsoft is nightmarishly bad at account management and has been since I was a little kid in the 90s. They somehow make it possible to have multiple different unsynced accounts across different services, so you constantly forget which is which, and resetting or gaining access is always an incredible hassle. I find myself having to reset my password literally…

These morons at MS decided to force a very confusing and friction-ful Minecraft account migration from Mojang to MS just as all the kids are migrating from Minecraft to Roblox. I'm sure this is only accelerating Minecraft's demise.

This account migration was bizarrely difficult. I lost access to Minecraft when I followed their procedure. I got hold of support, and they had me move back to an older version of the launcher, which recognized my new account, while the new launcher didn't. I assume I'll lose access again someday because they'll force an upgrade.

On the plus side, I was able to contact support. MS is a lot better than some other tech companies that way.

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#212
post #65
post #51

“The changes will mirror the same requirements Microsoft originally added to Windows 11 Home last year, meaning you won’t be able to avoid Microsoft Accounts by creating a local user account during setup.” If I remember correctly, when you install Win11 Home, it forces you to login with a Microsoft account. But the easy workaround is to unplug the ethernet cable, windows will realize it can’t connect and the local ac…

My last round of Windows 11 installs, I just created a new MS account for the install, created a local admin user, and then deleted the MS account from the machine and built local accounts out normally. I'm sure, somewhere, there's a Microsoft VP whose "New MS accounts" KPI looks great...

MS is using the boiling frog strategy. They will likely increase the difficulty of creating/using local accounts in the future, with the end game of completely removing support in a couple of years. Then you will either need an MS online account or an enterprise AD account.

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#213
My opinion stays unchanged: run from Microsoft like you're fighting for your life. They want nothing but to ensnare you into a web of proprietary languages and services until you can't do anything in your computer that is not controlled by them.

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#214

Windows 7/8 are the last good versions of Windows IMHO. Yeah they have security issues, but I run them in a virtual machine not connected to the Internet where I need things like iTunes and MS Office. Some games don't run in a VM very well because of the overhead and abstraction (unless they're lightweight or not resource intensive). I have a separate Alienware laptop for gaming on Windows however. My hypervisor OS i…

I still run windows 7 as the primary os on my daily driver.

Soon enough you will be better off running ReactOS as your daily driver.

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#215
post #52

Can you use Apple products without an account? If not*, what version of Linux should I get setup with. Casual web development. I mostly use my personal machine for gaming. Edit - Typo

I can recommend Pop!_OS for a good out-of-the-box Linux distro for development

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#216
post #158
post #52

Can you use Apple products without an account? If not*, what version of Linux should I get setup with. Casual web development. I mostly use my personal machine for gaming. Edit - Typo

I'd recommend Ubuntu also. However I can't stand their default desktop environment, so I'd either recommend Ubuntu mate, or (what I did) the latest and greatest Ubuntu, and then just sudo apt-get install cinnamon-desktop-environment which will give you a desktop with a start menu more akin to windows.

Ubuntu is a must have in every masochist’s toolbox

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#217
post #62

Using Windows with a Microsoft account introduces all sorts of issues that only power users tend to come across, and power users are who Windows Pro is targeted for. For example, RDP'ing to a Windows Pro computer with a Microsoft account becomes a lot more difficult. Another example is that Windows still needs a local username and password, even if you've logged in with a Microsoft account, and this can get out of sy…

> For example, RDP'ing to a Windows Pro computer with a Microsoft account becomes a lot more difficult.

I'm of the exact opposite persuasion. RDP'ing into a computer with your Microsoft account is easier, along with file and folder permissions across network shares and other account related things.

I used to have to manage an AD domain to have the same set of accounts across all my various Windows machines. Now that I can sign in with my Windows account, its the same account across all my machines. Permissions are easier on network shares, its the same account. Friends that come over and want to use my machines can log in with their own account. Sharing files with them is then just granting access to their Microsoft account. Its pretty much entirely replaced the desire to run AD at home, which IMO makes things loads easier.

As for your password being out of sync, I've only experienced an out of sync password in cases where the device could not have an internet connection. Once the device was able to get an internet connection, it prompted for me to refresh the current device credentials (lock and log back in), and it then authenticated against the cloud Microsoft account. In the 10 years and ~30 different machines used I've yet to experience a single real frustration of the online account and local account getting out of sync for more than a single password change when literally in the wilderness. In which case, it was just the last password I used to log in to the machine, and then updated when it got network connectivity again.

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#218

I hate it, not because it requires an account, but because Microsoft is nightmarishly bad at account management and has been since I was a little kid in the 90s. They somehow make it possible to have multiple different unsynced accounts across different services, so you constantly forget which is which, and resetting or gaining access is always an incredible hassle. I find myself having to reset my password literally…

These morons at MS decided to force a very confusing and friction-ful Minecraft account migration from Mojang to MS just as all the kids are migrating from Minecraft to Roblox. I'm sure this is only accelerating Minecraft's demise.

This one absolutely kills me. Why do my kids need Microsoft accounts for this? Their official instructions ask for DOB and require checking some box about allowing my kids to sign into "third-party applications". Not to mention all the legal crap I'll have to agree to, settings to scrutinize and opt-out of to ensure privacy, etc. I am this close to just telling them that they're going to have to abandon their favorite game for something else.

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#219

I hate it, not because it requires an account, but because Microsoft is nightmarishly bad at account management and has been since I was a little kid in the 90s. They somehow make it possible to have multiple different unsynced accounts across different services, so you constantly forget which is which, and resetting or gaining access is always an incredible hassle. I find myself having to reset my password literally…

Forget across services, I somehow have at least three Microsoft accounts all tied to the same email address, with no way to know which account any particular service wants on any given day. Teams is particularly bad, signing me into one of the three seemingly at random so that I have to keep logging out and back in until it miraculously gets me into the correct account, guessing which password it wants each time. Any…

I like the dance I have to do to log in’

- username

- password

- 2fa

- username

- password

- 2fa (but not too soon, or they’ll say I’ve used up my token supply for the day)

- maybe logged in, maybe do it again

Re: Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup

#220
post #70

Dialing up the annoyance level to a 11. Microsoft has spent the last 6 years or more glacially gravitating its OS-developer features towards Ubuntu. Because they couldn't do better - VSCode being the one crowning glory - and not an insignificant one. The side annoyances of a barely functional Cortana & Edge, were things I looked past, now add one more, a required account - we'll be led into unknown realms of integrat…

VSCode is great, Github only got better under Microsoft, and I'm actually one of the people who likes Teams... But even as a general fanboy (Win98 was the system that really got me into computers), it is just too much bullshit at this point. While before I had a Linux partition for specific work, and my main "digital life" on windows, I'm going to switch this around now. And it sucks so much, there is no good reason…

In WinXP there was something about WMP checking for the rights to MP3's that were already on your computer to verify that you were legally allowed to play them.

I don't think users of Windows have been the primary focus for a long time.

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