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Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

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Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#371

Post by dkersten »

t-writescode wrote: post #138
craftyguy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is a very common setting among those who care about privacy Sorry, but if you use microsoft products you either do not actually care about privacy, or do not understand how microsoft is not taking your privacy seriously.

Or you could use a pihole to block their telemetry collection practices. Or you could prefer to play games and recognize there’s only one real option for playing the new ones Or you could hate them, but you work at a Windows shop. Please don’t assume everyone forced to use Windows enjoy Microsoft’s practices. Do you eat Nestle food? Are you aware of the evils of that company? Are you in support of those evils, despit…

> Or you could prefer to play games and recognize there’s only one real option for playing the new ones

Yeah. A PS4 for all those amazing exclusives ;-)

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#372

Post by raxxorrax »

pndy wrote: post #350
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people spend $X per month on the Adobe Suite, and people tend to enjoy that. I work in the graphic design industry, and I've got news for you... people do not enjoy Adobe's move to subscription pricing, and on the contrary still complain about it. Anecdotal evidence, I suppose, but seriously... I haven't met a single person who prefers Creative Cloud to just buying the suites.

My friend who's a graphic designer had to reinstall Windows because, surprise surprise, one of earlier Windows 10 builds released for Windows 7 bricked her machine and that of course comes with reinstalling all software as well. And the fun started when she had to reinstall Adobe stuff: she couldn't reactivate one of older Photoshop she bought because it wasn't supported anymore - it couldn't connect to Adobe servers…

Had two of these scenarios too where the software was suddenly not activated anymore. Nothing helped, didn't want to reinstall the OS. At some point I just thought that since the license is there, piracy is the way to go. The cracked versions installed without issues and neither used any cloud functionality.

A stripped down installer for Windows might also be the way to go here. Of course updates would pose a problem.

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#373

Post by AJRF »

xtracto wrote: post #250
cwojno wrote: post #203

I've switched to Linux + Mint in part because I don't want to be using Windows any more. Many of my games work with Steam on Linux now, actually. With Google's docs/drive, everything works cross platform. I really have no productivity loss by not using Windows any more.

> With Google's docs/drive, everything works cross platform What do you use instead of Google Backup and Sync client? I haven't found something that works like that. The "best" thing I've found is the FUSE Ocaml filesystem ( https://github.com/astrada/google-drive-ocamlfuse ) but still it is a "mounted" over network filesystem and not a sync-on-change solution. I tried InSync but could not make it work and it is not…

InSync enables Google Drive sync on linux, $30 but I found it to be worth the cost - works really well: https://www.insynchq.com/

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#375

Post by ageofwant »

daveheq wrote: post #258
cwojno wrote: post #203

I've switched to Linux + Mint in part because I don't want to be using Windows any more. Many of my games work with Steam on Linux now, actually. With Google's docs/drive, everything works cross platform. I really have no productivity loss by not using Windows any more.

How do you deal with Broadcom WiFi drivers?

You unscrew the small screw that keeps the mPCIe wifi card in place lift it out and throw it in the fish tank where it becomes part of the amusing detritus of social commentary and landscape art you've been contributing to.

Now pop in the $18 Intel card you ordered last night and landed a hour ago.

Your done !

Oh wait ! NOOB, you forgot to replace the screw !

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#376

Post by ageofwant »

bsder wrote: post #160
mastazi wrote: post #63

This is incredibly bad. In general I have a positive opinion about what MS is doing lately, but Windows is a glaring exception, it’s getting worse and worse at an alarming rate. In the last two months we had two consecutive updates that broke basic functionality for users who disabled web results in Windows Search (which is a very common setting among those who care about privacy) https://www.zdnet.com/article/window…

> In general I have a positive opinion about what MS is doing lately, but Windows is a glaring exception, it’s getting worse and worse at an alarming rate. Ayup. Win10 finally broke the camel's back and I started the process of figuring out how to transfer as much as we can to Linux. The hardest part is that our embedded development stuff is all Windows. :( I've been trying to get VSCode, Segger, and embedded boards…

Hmmm, this is kind of the wrong way round. In my experience all the good stuff is on Linux, and windows have these bad broken ports. Depends on a lot things I'm sure...

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#377

Post by nordsieck »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #359
frant-hartm wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad to see such victims of marketing.

While I'm 99% sure you're just trolling, on the 1% chance you're really not, the OP is absolutely correct in that Apple is positioning their $6000 monitor against $30K+ cinema editing monitors. They really exist. A lot of the Pro Display XDR specs are really very very clearly aimed at competing with them. Those specs may not be something you care about, but let's not pretend it's "yeah, whatever, I can get this other…

> the OP is absolutely correct in that Apple is positioning their $6000 monitor against $30K+ cinema editing monitors.

If you want to see Apple's competition, the magic phrase is "reference monitor".

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#378

Post by mistaken »

You can still switch to Audit mode during install using SHIFT-F2, follow https://bartsimons.me/sysprep-generalize-windows-image-witho... to disable OOBE, then replace e.g. Narrator.exe with cmd.exe and set an administrator password. After that you can revert Narrator.exe back. It's a bit complicated, but it works and you don't have to create any additional accounts if you don't want to.

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#379

Post by noisem4ker »

hermitdev wrote: post #150

Um, I just installed the latest Win 10 Development VM on Tuesday from a download of the image the same day, and it most certainly allowed me to install with a non MS account. I dont have the exact build number on hand, but its supposed to be the fast insider ring, from what I read.

It's probably the 18970 build. Yes, it allows you to. Yes, Microsoft already reverted the change that some redditor just discovered.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3409788/how-microsoft-made-i...

Re: Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

#380

Post by angry_octet »

chank wrote: post #165
blahedo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they though? My friends that work IT in corporate settings seem to tear their hair out every time MS (or anyone ) tries to auto-push an update that they haven't had a chance to rigorously test for compatibility and security with their existing stuff. Some of them have fiduciary responsibility to not add/change/upgrade software without carefully testing it first. That doesn't seem compatible with the trajectory Win…

They do. I work in a very large corp. 25k+ employees, 5bn+ net revenue per year. Our entire IT dept. is outsourced, we're on office365, rent all of our hardware which is refreshed at regular intervals as part of the deal. Everything developed native cloud, all our offices are rented. We basically do everything we can to reduce capital expenditures.

It's funny that entire IT architectures have evolved just to optimize tax reduction and stock market interaction because of rules about opex and capex.

I wonder though whether this optimization hasn't created a brittleness in operations, where shocks due to security lapses or outsourced provider probls become unrecoverable.

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