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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

#341

Post by drbawb »

jacquesm wrote: post #117

Ah we never saw that one coming. What really bugs me is why people keep defending these companies: this is straight up abusive, and we - all of us - should not accept these tricks. Getting you an MS account is one small step away from charging you monthly for the privilege of using the computer that you've already paid for.

>Getting you an MS account is one small step away from charging you monthly for the privilege of using the computer that you've already paid for.

That's already a thing - unfortunately - the only way to get Windows 10/11 Enterprise is via a subscription, though they're careful not to word it as such. There are three ways to get it: (1) you can either buy it through the volume license channel which requires an active software assurance agreement to continue legally using the latest build [though you can legally reinstall the LTSC branch for as long as that's supported]; (2) you can also get a subscription for Windows E3/E5 for ~$84/yr from M365. Which, if you price out the volume license with SA it works out to about the same yearly cost as M365, funny how that works. (3) Finally if you're an MSDN subscriber you get some number of non-prod keys for Windows Enterprise.

So I agree with you 100%, the writing is on the wall, Windows will absolutely become a subscription service in the next few years. (Thankfully I've been distancing myself from Windows in anticipation of this event. As soon as it was described as "Windows as a Service" in marketing material I immediately installed Linux on my main workstation, and stuffed Windows inside a VM w/ PCIe passthrough for the GPU.)

My guess is they'll bundle Home into M365 family, Pro will remain available to consumers in the OEM channel, but will primarily be meant an upgrade available for M365 business subscribers, and Enterprise will remain mostly unchanged as the volume license option.

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

#342

Post by amanzi »

vel0city wrote: post #217
amanzi wrote: 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…

My issue is that my Microsoft account has a long, random password that is saved in my password vault. I never have to manually type this in because I have it linked to the Microsoft Authenticator app. But if I try to RDP to a computer with a Microsoft Account, I have to use the password to connect with the RDP app (unless I'm missing something?). My local user accounts on my home LAN have complex but easy to remember passwords so this is not usually an issue for me.

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

#343

Post by joenathanone »

vel0city wrote: post #217
amanzi wrote: 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…

>RDP'ing into a computer with your Microsoft account is easier

Here is where it gets complicated, what you say is true for personal accounts and Hybrid Azure AD accounts, but it becomes super difficult with pure Azure AD accounts.

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

#344

Post by amanzi »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #258
gilrain wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I wound up becoming so annoyed that I finally switched to Linux. It’s been great. I haven’t even missed out on gaming.

I might get downvoted, but I like windows as an OS. I used it for years and it was pretty stable and easy to modify. Now that they are going the way of Google they really have nothing to keep me. Linux has been my main OS for years anyway. Windows I used for office, adobe products, and games. I guess I'll just keep a network gapped VM around for those on my linux and buy some extra memory to handle the VM.

Most of my work life has been focused on Microsoft products, so I've been using Windows for a long time as my primary OS. I upgraded to Windows 11 as soon as I could and despite me creating a local account initially, I then linked it to a Microsoft Account which has caused me no end of pain. There have been lots of other niggly issues with Windows 11 that I've been living with, e.g. I prefer having my taskbar on the right-hand side of the screen but that feature went away with Windows 11; and the start menu search has been playing up recently where I couldn't just start typing after the menu coming up - although it seems to be better at the moment.

I switched my laptop over to PopOS a while back and have really been enjoying that, although I miss not having the Office desktop apps available. I also purchased a OneDrive sync app for Linux which works very well.

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

#345

Post by amanzi »

smoldesu wrote: post #276
flatiron wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to beat windows native office. MacOS version stinks and the web version is pretty slow on complicated stuff. That’s why I use windows on my work PC ans WSL for the dev stuff.

It's not everyone's favorite answer, but LibreOffice works fine for me. I've set a number of documents with it (including my own resume) and it works perfectly fine. It's not the most intuitive program ever made, but it's nothing if not comprehensive.

You're not going to convince hardcore Office users (like me) that LibreOffice is good enough. I try it occasionally on my Linux laptop, and I have nothing good to say about it.

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

#346

Post by amanzi »

Kye wrote: post #161
mark-r wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hoping Microsoft will go one step too far and everyone will be forced to switch. Hasn't happened yet.

Linux really doesn't have good alternatives for most of the tools I use, and none of it runs in Wine and similar, so I hope not.

What are you missing out the most on Linux? For me, it's really just the Office apps, everything else I've found works just as well on Linux.

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

#347

Post by amanzi »

jl6 wrote: post #307

Can someone explain to me why Microsoft migrating my Minecraft account to my Microsoft account is not a huge security anti-pattern, given that this is the same account I use to access my high-importance Azure account? Do we really believe that the Minecraft launcher presents no additional attack surface and handles authentication material with the same rigor as the Azure login process?

To be fair, I've found that Microsoft have the best security for their accounts - much better than Apple ID or Google Accounts. Excellent 2FA support and if you have it set up with the Authenticator app, you will almost never need to type in your Microsoft account password. Unlike Apple or Google where I find that I often need to type in those passwords which forces me to pick easier passwords.

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

#348

Post by vel0city »

amanzi wrote: post #342
vel0city wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

My issue is that my Microsoft account has a long, random password that is saved in my password vault. I never have to manually type this in because I have it linked to the Microsoft Authenticator app. But if I try to RDP to a computer with a Microsoft Account, I have to use the password to connect with the RDP app (unless I'm missing something?). My local user accounts on my home LAN have complex but easy to remember…

If you're already signed in, you've got access to your vault, so it's not too hard to get your password from that when doing your login for RDP. Then you can have it remember your account, or just use the password vault each time. On the plus there, then all your computers are then protected by this complex password instead of weaker passwords. Then you can use PIN, Hello, or security keys for easier sign in locally. Your account is still protected by your complex password, the alternative login methods are local only and have short guess attempts.

I haven't tried but I think these days you can actually authenticate RDP with a security key associated with the account.

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

#350

Post by worewood »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #258
gilrain wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I wound up becoming so annoyed that I finally switched to Linux. It’s been great. I haven’t even missed out on gaming.

I might get downvoted, but I like windows as an OS. I used it for years and it was pretty stable and easy to modify. Now that they are going the way of Google they really have nothing to keep me. Linux has been my main OS for years anyway. Windows I used for office, adobe products, and games. I guess I'll just keep a network gapped VM around for those on my linux and buy some extra memory to handle the VM.

Technically speaking it is nice. I like NT as an OS too. The user experience is being eroded by marketing.
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