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Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

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Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#351

Post by kristofferg »

AnodicElegy wrote: post #346

This stuff drives me nuts. Chrome on desktop is another abhorrent example of this. Every time I log in to a Google account within the browser, it nags me to link the account to the browser itself. One time my partner clicked the popup that asks to link the account by accident (this is very easy to do and probably Google's intention) and it hijacked all of my bookmarks. When I logged out of the account, everything was…

I wish you a smooth transition. These days odds are everything will work out of the box.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#352

Post by kubik369 »

microgpt wrote: post #326
kubik369 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I have personally come to the same conclusion. I do not encrypt the drives in my home desktops and servers so that the recovery/migration is easier when the time comes. The risk of someone stealing my desktops from my home is very low and the impact of someone going through my family photos or Linux ISOs is nothing. I roll my eyes at my friend when he explains the solutions for how to input the encryption pas…

I used to think that and then the authorities raided my house (for bullshit reasons that had nothing to do with me). Now I encrypt everything.

That's a valid point. I feel for you. Similar thing has happened to a friend because of his dorm roommate torrenting some ... not linux isos illegal stuff.

With that said, I still find this risk quite unlikely to happen (at least in my country) with data loss due to being unable to decrypt the drive being more likely due to me changing computers often. If I were in a country such as the current U.S. for instance, I would most probably encrypt everything I could get my hands on. In addition, I think it is one more reason to have good offsite backups and to invest time into those. For me, losing the data/not having access to it for a long time while the police have it is a bigger impact than them finding out what porn I watch in my opinion. I don't mean it in a "nothing to hide" kind of way, but in a "I don't think they could do much any/damage with that information" way.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#353

Post by kubik369 »

hellojesus wrote: post #339
kubik369 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I have personally come to the same conclusion. I do not encrypt the drives in my home desktops and servers so that the recovery/migration is easier when the time comes. The risk of someone stealing my desktops from my home is very low and the impact of someone going through my family photos or Linux ISOs is nothing. I roll my eyes at my friend when he explains the solutions for how to input the encryption pas…

> I roll my eyes at my friend when he explains the solutions for how to input the encryption password when his server restarts. Isn't this rather trivial? You gen a keyfile, register it with luksAddKey, then update /etc/crypttab, no? The real concern is making sure that keyfile is stored securely, but you can simply symmetrically encrypt it and upload it to your favorite cloud storage provider.

Uuh, I am not sure. I believe that he was talking about having full disk encryption which means that he needs to input the password to unlock the boot partition.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#354

Post by deltoidmaximus »

gedy wrote: post #72
password4321 wrote: post #34

I was in a hurry trying to log into my kid's Minecraft account, wound up clicking something to associate it with the Windows account... now the PC is in restricted mode and I'm having a hard time restoring the previously associated Microsoft account (among other things, have to ask permission to open the browser and approve the requests logging in on my phone)! Everything online says to use the option to switch to a…

Kinda inverse for me but abandoned Windows after having a local account for my kids, and I bought them MS Flight Simulator on my Microsoft Account from the MS Store. There was no way to use this expensive purchase from the kid's account on the same machine! Stupid bullshit - I gave up on Windows from then on.

I have to figure out by my kid's new Minecraft account is banned/blocked or whatever even though she hasn't even used it, looks like the standard pump for extra PII scam every account setup runs now. She was about on the verge of tears telling me about it.

I deal with the shenanigans at work but I'm at least paid to eat shit there. That's how they run things I guess, you give them money, then they extort you to get more if you want what you paid for or they'll make your kid cry. I'm grinding my teeth just thinking about it.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#355

Post by throwaway81523 »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #235
throwaway81523 wrote: post #38

There's a similar thing with Google accounts and Android, amirite? I've avoided having a Google account but it hasn't always been easy.

You can do that just fine. Huge swaths of people just use the Amazon app store or the Samsung One. F-Droid is also an option if you don't want to make any accounts.

Yeah I use f-droid. I wouldn't want to use Amazon or Samsung etc.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#356

Post by parineum »

Grimm665 wrote: post #331
Grombobulous wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other potentially obvious question is why bother using an OS that’s out of support when Linux is so good? I left Windows 11. The last straw wasn’t Microsoft accounts or Windows updates. I actually thought the OS was fine, most OS updates actually added great new features, and anything I considered an annoyance was easy to disable permanently. Toss your Windows 11 ISO into Rufus and disabling things like Microsoft…

> The other potentially obvious question is why bother using an OS that’s out of support when Linux is so good? I'm in the process of setting up a Linux desktop to replace my Win10 one, and for me it's these (if anyone has suggestions for migration or replacement, I'd love some opinions!) - Lightroom. If anyone knows how to either run this under Linux, or migrate an entirely catalog of photos (plus edits) to somethin…

> - Games. This is really getting better and better each year...but I regularly play Microsoft Flight Simulator and haven't even tried to get that running in Linux yet (anyone have good experiences getting this working?)

It's a major step up in power but the steam deck has really pushed the wine/proton environment to near parity. The only things that really don't work through it reliably is anti-cheat stuff that I really don't want on my machine anyway.

I can't speak for the experience with nvidia drivers but it's pretty amazing how far it's come.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#357

Post by throwaway81523 »

opan wrote: post #100
throwaway81523 wrote: post #38

There's a similar thing with Google accounts and Android, amirite? I've avoided having a Google account but it hasn't always been easy.

I've mostly just used LineageOS for several years now, but I believe the first time setup pushes you to sign in to a Google account, but you can easily skip it. If you do sign in, it's sticky/permanent and I think may require a reinstall to get back out of it.

Lineage is interesting but doesn't support my phone or others that is want. Same with Graphene.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#358

Post by _-_-__-_-_- »

I've been a daily windows user since 1998. I'm a geek. So, of course, I experimented with other operating systems. I've had Mac OS X laptops since 2006 (off and on), but I always had a main windows desktop. In 2018, I installed Manjaro XFCE on my laptop and forced myself to learn Linux and use the system. Now, I still have a windows desktop, but my laptop and my server run Linux (Fedora and Ubuntu) and I go weeks without ever powering-on my windows box. It's really great!

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#359

Post by timedude »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #277
iamnothere wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see what the problem is. Just don’t get into any business that MS considers shady, or disparage the company publicly, or piss off an executive, or get sanctioned because your work with the UN is at cross purposes with the current US administration.

Is that sarcasm? What happens if MS decides that using competitors software is "shady" - they have previous form of unfair competition practices, so it's not unlikely. Also, what happens if the US administration decides that MS software is only authorised if you have white skin and support Trump?

It could also simply be a false positive, as that seems to be happening a lot lately.

Re: Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

#360

Post by drnick1 »

kubik369 wrote: post #353
hellojesus wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I roll my eyes at my friend when he explains the solutions for how to input the encryption password when his server restarts. Isn't this rather trivial? You gen a keyfile, register it with luksAddKey, then update /etc/crypttab, no? The real concern is making sure that keyfile is stored securely, but you can simply symmetrically encrypt it and upload it to your favorite cloud storage provider.

Uuh, I am not sure. I believe that he was talking about having full disk encryption which means that he needs to input the password to unlock the boot partition.

You can use TPM2 to automatically unlock the root partition and not have to input a password manually at boot. This is how my laptop (running Arch, btw) is setup. Whether or not disk encryption is necessary for a system that is physically secure at home or elsewhere is debatable however. But a laptop can be easily left somewhere and disk encryption seems necessary unless it never leaves home.
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