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People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

windowscentral.com

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Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#281

Post by ewoodrich »

anthk wrote: post #165
kipchak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had good luck with the winutil tool, which is wrapper for a bunch of powershell commands and registry edits in a .ps1 to remove bloat. After using it on a fresh install I can't recall the last time I've had any of the mentioned issues. If you're (understandably) concerned about the security implications most of the changes can be done manually going off the docs. https://github.com/christitustech/winutil

Bloat will come back on every update. It's futile.

I’ve used this Powershell script on every Windows 11 machine in the last four years (5+ devices) and have never needed to re-run it after an update.

It’s the first thing I do on a fresh install, and with my selections I see fewer ads (0, more or less) than I do on my MacBook for iCloud products so I’d hardly say it’s “futile” in actual use and only takes like 5 minutes to run once.

I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script.

Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years.

https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#282

Post by z3ratul163071 »

antiframe wrote: post #195
kakacik wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for Total Commander mention, its bizarre how many otherwise smart folks completely ignore this productivity enhancer. I keep showing it to colleagues but they all anyway revert back to basic clunky File explorer and variants. Doesn't matter if I show them that I can be easily 10x faster, do stuff simply impossible otherwise, has tons of plugins etc. its just ignored.

I don't know about Total Commander because that appears to be Windows-only, but twin-pane "Commanders" (named after NC) do seem more popular in certain circles. They're still in wide use in Eastern Europe. Commanders have also influenced Dolphin, which has a built in twin-pane view (but it's not a commander because it lacks the typical keybinds) and there's a commander called Krusader that is a better fit.

Double Commander. It is awesome.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#283

Post by randusername »

grujicd wrote: post #12

This "make Windows better" push is far more political than technological. It's a fight with other divisions about using Windows as a marketing and sales channel for other products and services. It has to be a decision from the very top. I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. It's not just 10% of revenue, it's a foundation for how…

The year is 2050. Desktop operating systems are a relic of the past.

Windows collapsed inwards on itself in 2031 when MS realized telemetry data was 10X as profitable when sold directly to nosy exes, neighbors, priests, and so on instead of advertising agencies. This practice was highly illegal, but the MS legal team unanimously ruled that SCOTUS's ruling on it was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, society barely survived.

Windows XP lives on quietly powering ATMs. We also still have Surface Tablets. They don't function anymore, but they hide the paunch of aging sports commentators well and NFL players and coaches greatly enjoy using them to bludgeon each other on the sidelines.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#285

Post by autoexec »

stronglikedan wrote: post #182
ano-ther wrote: post #2

That would improve things. Over the weekend, a family member could not log into their laptop any longer. Turned out to be “a problem with Teams” that required an unscheduled update which was marked as optional. Needless to say that they never used Teams on that machine. When the login worked partially, their files weren’t accessible because they accidentally saved it on OneDrive which now defaults to storing online o…

> OneDrive which now defaults to storing online only Holy shit that's nuts!

Makes it easier for them to mine your files for personal data they can use to push ads I guess.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#286

Post by john_strinlai »

kuerbel wrote: post #275
john_strinlai wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kudos to them! out of curiosity, "large parts" of "one german state" is how many machines roughly? i am suspecting that it is probably nowhere near enough to put windows in "significant danger". however, i am rooting for their success and hope that they thoroughly document (and publish) the process. i have never seen a transition like that go smoothly, let alone when it is in government.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Goodbye-Microsoft-Schleswig-Hol... That was the situation at the end of December. Note that projects like these often fail not for technical reasons, not even cost, but political pressure from other parties, pressure from people that worked for ages in the administration and, well, have some problems to adjust to new software. There is also a push from the German state to switch to open s…

thanks for the link! it is unfortunate that they do not provide numbers, just percentages. i would love to know exactly (or roughly) how many machines "80%" is.

and the "80%" seems slightly misleading, because it is 80%, not including the tax administration. i have no idea what overall % of machines are inside or outside of the tax administration.

it also appears like this is mostly about software like office, rather than operating systems?

>"outside the tax administration, almost 80 percent of workplaces in the state administration have already been switched to the open-source office software LibreOffice."

switching away from office is significantly more realistic than migrating away from windows altogether, and something that every business can and should absolutely consider doing soon.

anyways, seriously, good for them. as i mentioned elsewhere, i hope that they are thoroughly documenting their experiences and are willing to share them after completion.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#287

Post by john_strinlai »

breve wrote: post #280
john_strinlai wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 20 years is way too large a minimum estimate. i disagree. unless intuit is also rewriting quickbooks, dassault systèmes is rewriting solidworks, every bank is rewriting their custom windows-only software, every government branch is rewriting their custom windows-only software, etc. and every company is willing to retrain 95% of their employees on a new operating system, have increased support requirements for a few…

> i disagree. unless intuit is also rewriting quickbooks, dassault systèmes is rewriting solidworks, every bank is rewriting their custom windows-only software, every government branch is rewriting their custom windows-only software Up front they won't need to do a full rewrite. They'll only need to make it work well enough under Wine. At a source level, tools like Avalonia's xpf make porting WPF apps to other platfo…

of the stupid enterprise-y software like quickbooks, solidworks and other proprietary stuff that i have used, they barely work well enough under native windows. not to mention, even sticking them in a windows VM voids any support contracts.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#289

Post by grujicd »

Junk_Collector wrote: post #271
john_strinlai wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 20 years is way too large a minimum estimate. i disagree. unless intuit is also rewriting quickbooks, dassault systèmes is rewriting solidworks, every bank is rewriting their custom windows-only software, every government branch is rewriting their custom windows-only software, etc. and every company is willing to retrain 95% of their employees on a new operating system, have increased support requirements for a few…

It's an interesting case to me. The company I work for has been shipping systems on windows since the 90's despite pretty consistent requests from customers to ship hardware on Linux. 2 years ago we started creating our own Linux distribution and this year started shipping products on it. We still ship a lot of stuff on Windows 11, but that market share is starting to shift now. 10 years from now I could see us compl…

You can't abandon Windows because of software X, Y, Z. Over the years vendors move to multiplatform as more and more customers ask for it. These changes are slow but steady. And one day you find out that the last "must have" software is not limited to Windows anymore. That's when the dam breaks.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#290

Post by throw384848t »

Melatonic wrote: post #183
Rapzid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with a sizeable background in Linux system engineering.. I prefer Windows to MacOS. It's IMHO a better desktop now with the edge snap tile layout and etc. Excellent device compatibility. And I get my linux environment needs satisfied via WSL2 these days. But damn if they don't get in their own way. I have my own Pro licenses, and even with Pro turning off ads and features is text book whack-a-mole: * Frequ…

Get Windows LTSC instead and run Firefox ! Most problems solved.

is not mozilla advertising company, that heavilly pushes AI? How is their spying any different from microsoft?
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