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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

#261

Post by wiredfool »

teekert wrote: post #155
shantnutiwari wrote: post #119

Microsoft has been using this dark pattern for a while now. Around 1-2 years ago, I upgraded MS Office on my Windows laptop. It asked me for my username/password-- which I didnt think strange, as I assumed it needed it to upgrade. And thats when I got a message "Good news! Your Windows machine now uses your Microsoft to login." W.T.F. I was never asked, never warned, just tricked into replacing my local login with an…

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…

You're probably not going to be able to use that bit for bit copy later.

I did something similar with my last linux laptop, and none of the workarounds to put the partitions back worked when I needed a quick windows test machine.

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

#262

Post by qwerty456127 »

adsfasdfadsf222 wrote: post #84
nlitened wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just give them a new computer, they sign-in with their account and start doing their job They can start doing their job without signing in with any accounts, one step fewer.

nah the problem is the bovine masses have everything synced to their microsoft account now. they dont even really know how the file system works just log in to your ms account on a new laptop and wait a few hours while everything syncs up via onedrive and its like every computer is your home computer

> they dont even really know how the file system works

I wouldn't say this is a problem in the bad sense. That's Ok. Almost nobody (except low-level system engineers) really knew how the file system works ever. I always believed it's unreasonable to ask people to learn about file system internals.

What I really consider a problem which should never have happened and should be fixed ASAP is Windows hiding file name extensions by default.

And people having an idea of how a DOC file and a TXT file are different, what do TXT and HTML files have in common and why zipping MP4 videos doesn't save space feel a blessing for me to meet among non-devs.

> just log in to your ms account on a new laptop and wait a few hours while everything syncs up via onedrive and its like every computer is your home computer

And this is a convenience we have to reproduce. It almost is there - you can add a Microsoft account in Ubuntu but it still requires an extra step of setting a local user up and signing in with it first.

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

#263

Post by matthewmacleod »

hulitu wrote: post #161
fsloth wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> 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. (Smart)phones and tablets are not computing devices any more than a refrigerator. You cannot do any real work on them. Even finding a text editor, let alone editing, is a challenge. Other stuff like SW development or CAD/CAE is the same.…

You cannot do any real work on them.

This is obviously and objectively untrue, and this attitude contributes to the exact problem that’s being pointed out above.

You can make a decent and convincing argument that consumer devices should be more open without trivialising the (very much real) work that many, many millions of users do with them.

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

#264

Post by cheese_van »

Even the most ordinary technically intelligent person would have a problem with this. And Microsoft have legions of intelligent tech boffins. What happened to their common sense? Surely someone said, "Nah, this is dumb. We're smart. Our job is to make tech better, not worse. Let's not push this."

I just can't imagine a team of smart techs cheering this on with "Great idea!"

What pressures transpire to induce really smart teams to make such extravagantly poor decisions? It's a mystery.

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

#265

Post by buran77 »

ioulian wrote: post #217
rootusrootus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've only installed PRO versions of Windows 10 and you CAN setup a local account even if internet is plugged in. It is however, hidden behind a few clicks so you must actively search for it. EDIT: maybe I'm wrong now, as other comment says they changed it a few months back. My last install was somewhere in Dec/2020

I installed a 21H1 Pro version just yesterday. On the user creation screen the local account is still hidden behind a "Domain join instead" button where you can actually use a local account. Of course most people at home would actually actively stay away from that button thinking it must lead to some enterprise IT voodoo.

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

#266

Post by Macha »

brushfoot wrote: post #73

This makes me want to move back to Linux, but last time I tried Ubuntu (2020) there were lots of little annoyances. Off the top of my head: - Screen tearing. I Googled around and installed the Nvidia drivers for my laptop, but it never went away. - No detection of tablet mode. - No auto screen rotation. - Slow Blender rendering. Probably a PEBKAC with my driver setup, but it just worked in Windows and it was easy to…

> - No detection of tablet mode.

Well, Microsoft are getting rid of tablet mode in Windows 11, so soon it will be at parity :p

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

#267

Post by BLKNSLVR »

nickjj wrote: 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 have become the best advertisement for Linux on the desktop.

This kind of advertising actually worked on me.

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

#268

Post by gpvos »

romanovcode wrote: post #24
thelibrarian wrote: post #21

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.

If so many people are directly contradicting you, you may want to put in a bit more research instead of relying on possibly outdated experience.

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

#269

Post by HumblyTossed »

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

Yes, you will. Eventually. They'll continue to beat you down until you submit. Because, here's the secret. Even though you built the machine from the ground up, hand selecting all the parts, once you install Windows, the machine belongs to Microsoft. No, really, it does. They certainly think so. And they're a rich powerful organization, so it must be so.

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

#270

Post by Macha »

iso1631 wrote: post #138
sturadnidge wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According the article, come Windows 11 that will be incorrect.

It's an opinion piece written for clicks. Time will tell if it's right or not.

Both Microsoft's official communication and the leaked beta indicate that Windows 11 will require this.
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