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How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#251

Post by pxc »

franga2000 wrote: post #179
justsomehnguy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten years ago you needed iTunes to enable your iPhone/iPad. Sure there are probably was a way to skip most of the requirements (except iTunes itself) but around that time I helped a friend to activate an iPad. I was forced to register an Apple account AND give it a credit card to activate that iPad. You can blame MS all you want, but MS IS LATE FOR THE PARTY WITH ALL THAT SHIT .

I bought my first Apple device (an iPad) two weeks ago out of necessity and even created an Apple account in advance, assuming Apple will force me to use it. I was very surprised to find a very obvious "Skip" button that let me complete the process with no account. And just because other manufacturers do it, isn't a reason not to blame MS for what MS did. Nobody forced them to do this and it's not even common practic…

From a Windows perspective, Apple might seem somehow generous, but if you're not interested in Apple's cloud services or you're actually concerned about privacy, the Mac setup wizard is still a minefield of shit to opt out of. :-\

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#252

Post by nazgulsenpai »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #169
cm2187 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And MS accounts make zero sense to anyone who has a private NAS or need to interact with anything non windows with kerberos.

It's worse than that. The account it creates is somehow "special". I have not yet figured out a way to connect to a computer with an MS account via RDP (yes, RDP is on and allowed through the firewall, the user is a local admin (the default)). Ditto for accessing that PC's shares.

You use the username MicrosoftAccount\email@address.com and the user password.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#253

Post by neurostimulant »

muppetman wrote: post #88

I'd love to know how Apple decides if a Wifi network is usable or not. For some reason my home network is flagged as a "Mobile" network and people connected to it can't update to the latest version of iOS etc. Is it because I've also created a Mobile Hotspot with the same SSID on a spare mobile phone I have, so my family can use their iPads out and about without having to connect to a new Wifi network? (i.e. I just w…

> Is it because I've also created a Mobile Hotspot with the same SSID on a spare mobile phone I have

If that spare mobile phone is an iphone, probably yes.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#254

Post by zinekeller »

pxc wrote: post #247
twerkmonsta wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious what Microsoft products people actually like? VS code might be the only one I’ve ever heard of.

Windows Terminal (despite the drama with its devs) is actually pretty good. PowerShell is excellent as a scripting language, and has deservedly been a huge influence on shells which have come after it. WSL is extremely frustrating because it has so many bugs and gotchas, but I'd say it's pretty popular with its intended audience.

> WSL is extremely frustrating because it has so many bugs and gotchas, but I'd say it's pretty popular with its intended audience.

I understand why WSL2 is now just a HyperV'd Linux, but WSL1 is amazing despite its limitations. I'm honestly hoping that they re-consider deploying a properly-developed Unix personality again, but that ship has sailed.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#255

Post by neurostimulant »

c0nsumer wrote: post #215
muppetman wrote: post #88

I'd love to know how Apple decides if a Wifi network is usable or not. For some reason my home network is flagged as a "Mobile" network and people connected to it can't update to the latest version of iOS etc. Is it because I've also created a Mobile Hotspot with the same SSID on a spare mobile phone I have, so my family can use their iPads out and about without having to connect to a new Wifi network? (i.e. I just w…

DHCP option 43 is often used to indicate if a mobile network is metered. (May be other ways, this is the one I'm most familiar with.) I'm guessing your "spare mobile phone" is Android? Apple caches a lot of info about networks it connects to. So it's probably caching that it received this option and "knows" that network to be metered. Best solution for this is to have either more control over your mobile network so i…

Apple doesn't seem to do that, but somehow magically know if the AP is an iphone without using DHCP option 43, even before connecting to that AP.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#256

Post by fulafel »

Kwpolska wrote: post #182
fulafel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they still unknowingly suffer from the harm it did to network effects and ability to deploy new types of internet apps.

I do not want my home computer to be exposed to the Internet. I do not want your fancy new Internet apps, the existing ones with explicit user-initiated connectivity are more than enough for 99% of people. And even if you somehow have a non-NAT, non-CGNAT, no-ISP-filtering home connection, do you have full Internet access if the server behind NowhereNews.com refuses all your connections because you’re in Europe?

This is a non sequitur. Your home computer being "exposed to the internet" is orthogonal. And of course this is now enough for 99% of people because said new apps are prevented from coming into existence.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#257

Post by gamblor956 »

twerkmonsta wrote: post #231
DoctorOW wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue Microsoft management has been perfectly fine killing off things people like.

Genuinely curious what Microsoft products people actually like? VS code might be the only one I’ve ever heard of.

Direct X, Office (esp Word and Excel), Outlook, OneNote, XBox, Surface, Visual Studio, VS Code, C#, F#, Windows 7 and 10, SkiFree...

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#258

Post by DangitBobby »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #233
DangitBobby wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being able to use the app store is pretty different from not being able to setup the computer.

Considering that on these Apple devices the Apple store is literally the only entry point for running actual programs on these devices, I would say it is indeed pretty equivalent to "not being able to setup the computer".

You might have bad information. Very little of the software I run on my Mac comes from the App store. Even if your assertion were accurate... You'd still be able to use Safari, and web browsing accounts for the lion's share of most people's computing needs. So the score is:

Windows 11: lay-users can do literally nothing of value with their computer without signing in to an account they probably don't want

MacOS: lay-users can use the internet and download software provided outside of the app store without signing into an account that they probably don't want

Calling these equivalent would be quite an exaggeration.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#259

Post by dixie_land »

r1ch wrote: post #51

Unfortunately it's not that simple. On my system with bridges for hyper-v and wireguard tunnels, the NCSI service happily ignores my default route and tries to establish connectivity through one of the other devices when resuming from sleep. It wouldn't be that bad if it was just the status indicator, but several apps refuse to work properly if "internet" isn't detected. The workaround is to disable every other adapt…

> but several apps refuse to work properly if "internet" isn't detected

For me it's very bad code smell when the developers try to check some sort of a global flag ("has internet") instead of just perform the action (eg send http request) and fail gracefully

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#260

Post by neurostimulant »

fulafel wrote: post #91

Really unfortunate terminology that molds peoples ideas of the internet, being able to access a website is pretty far from having full internet access. Calculated or not, it was also in MS interests to lead people to think this way. It should check if you are behind NAT and then say "Your computer doesn't have full Internet access but can reach some services via a gateway"

This ship has sailed now. A huge portion of internet users are behind double NAT these days. When you deploy a service on production, you'll have to assume your users are behind double NAT or CGNAT and add additional supporting services to mitigate them like STUN/TURN servers.
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