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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

#411

Post by nipinium »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #166
nickjj wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think too many people would be using Windows if it were really bad for Linux based development. I sure as heck wouldn't be. In an ideal world I would be running native Linux but I had trouble with some audio gear not working and my favorite video editing tool doesn't run in Linux, nor do some of the games I play -- so I use Windows because that's what's available. As much as I hate to say it, Windows is a pre…

As much as I hate to say it, Windows is a pretty good environment to do every day developer things + more. I keep thinking about the eventual replacement for my MacBook Pro. Every time I hear something like this, every time I see MS's open source contributions, etc. I keep thinking about Windows as a replacement. At the top of the list of reasons why that's unlikely to happen is shit like these dark patterns to enfor…

> I've used chocolataey (ugh)

use scoop instead.

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

#412

Post by aldanor »

mastazi wrote: post #233
viraptor wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about C: use Linux for the main desktop, use Wine for things that require Windows, use a VM with windows exclusively to launch that one annoying app which won't work under wine?

Oh yes of course that’s the cheapest option and probably good for most use cases, in my specific case I was thinking about a Mac Mini because some of the proprietary SW that I use (Adobe Suite, Ableton Live) probably wouldn’t run very well in a VM (but I may be wrong and I will of course test before spending money) Edit: besides the VM, I hear Wine supports many apps nowadays so it’s worth trying as well

+1, that's what I'm doing.

iMac for everything, including development and music production; Windows and Linux virtualised and resumable in a few seconds if needed.

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

#413

Post by glandium »

tobias3 wrote: post #407
glandium wrote: post #402

Relatedly, when I wanted to enable full disk encryption on Windows 10 Home, it insisted that I switch to online account (as in, it was impossible to enable FDE until I did). WTF?

I kind of understand this decision. Users forget their account password and lock themselves out. Then they complain about Windows loosing all their data. With an online account they can reset their password via mail, etc. There definitely should be an option to encrypt it like the in the pro version, but then you could also just buy the pro version (then you can also disable auto-updates...). It's not really expensiv…

Is there an available Pro update for arm64? Heck, I couldn't even find an install image for the version I have, and for some reason, Windows reset doesn't work, so I hope Windows won't hose itself ever on that machine, because it will then be a brick.

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

#414

Post by Normal_gaussian »

orev wrote: post #214
tzs wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and from what I can tell, their online account security is craptastic. I'm not convinced that their offline security is good, either. I sometimes will pick up my Surface Pro 4 and disconnect it from the charger. Disconnecting from the charger usually (but not always...not sure what determines it) wakes it. It then turns on their equivalent of Apple's Face ID, and tries to log in. Sometimes I don't actually want…

Face logon takes some seconds to initialize, and if you interrupt it it gets confused. But the solution to your issue is to have the type cover closed when you unplug it.

That is hardly a solution to a security issue. I can't ensure the burglar keeps the cover closed

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

#415

Post by m0zg »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #397
m0zg wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> getting worse and worse at an alarming rate That's because Windows Division does not exist anymore as a separate business unit within MS. It's now a part of Azure. And Azure doesn't really care all that much about making desktop excellent. It'll just keep it good enough for you to buy more Azure, but not more than that.

I'm wondering if this is really the right move as in "desktop is definitely going down and everything will be web based". In that case sure, why bother throwing money at it. But should we realize in a couple years that this was overhyped and desktop OS and apps won't go away, everyone will have migrated to OSX or Linux if Windows quality continues to decline at that rate.

And MS as a company would probably be just fine with that. They could even port Office to Linux then. 70+% of Azure is Linux already, so Windows is rapidly becoming a costly liability in Azure. Office customers are captive, it's not like there's anything else available that could compete anyway, so they'll tolerate a lot of abuse. Until there's a realistic prospect of losing significant revenue, MS isn't going to give a shit. It's (tactically, but not strategically) the right thing to do. Win 10 with minor tweaks is going to easily last another decade or more. Who cares if Mac is better: LOB apps don't run there anyway.

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

#416

Post by e12e »

jdnenej wrote: post #317
sieabahlpark wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not convinced that their offline security is good, either. If they have physical access to the device there isn't much you can do anyway.

You can with encryption and not using face unlock.

As far as I can figure out, you also need to opt for manually unlocking bitlocker via USB key (prone to copy/theft) or via typing in a passphrase (inconvenient) in order to safeguard the encryption key.

Windows will otherwise use hsm to store your key (as evidenced by eg face unlock working) - it's not at all clear how that could possibly be secure if an attacker steals your device?

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

#417

Post by panpanna »

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…

Linux is _by far_ the best platform for embedded development.

Vscode is available as an official snap (on Windows you need to download and update it manually), Segger tools and openocd are fully supported. GCC cross-compiler and even some flashing tools are part of the distro and just an apt-get away.

This also means that everyone get the same tools (same version, same bugs). Which makes collaboration much easier.

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

#418

Post by arbol »

logimame wrote: post #210
ViViDboarder wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could go the hackintosh route. Though I haven’t tried it in a decade or more, I’ve seen some people with pretty cool setups. Certainly more work to maintain than just Linux or an official Mac.

Recently hackintoshed a XPS 15 9550, and holy shit it became the best laptop I’ve used so far. Everything (including bluetooth and wifi) works, no butterfly keyboard shenanigans, still decent performance, lots of ports (including hdmi and usb 3), the touchpad works perfectly (with all multitouch gestures).

I don't suppose you have a link to a write up or guide you followed?

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

#419

Post by e12e »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #114
saghm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's been that way for a while? Maybe six months ago I wanted to add Windows to a Linux box I had, and I ran into this

No, last time I was installing Win10 was 23/09/2019 and there was an option to use offline account. Although, some system settings already require ms account.

Did you download/create install media at that time? Fwiw I've done a handful of (re) installs of W10 pro at work (over the past year or so) , and the installer experience along with enrollment in azure ad has been different every time...
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