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Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

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Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#451

Post by surgical_fire »

mythz wrote: post #300

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhappy when a sleazy corp forces me to give up on 25 years of muscle memory of using my preferred OS, but I'm thankful they gave me the push I needed to rip off the ad/spyware laced Windows Band-Aid that I only need to do once in my life. It's been over a year sinc…

I made the jump to Linux 3 years ago, when I learned that Windows 10 support was coming to an end, and I really didn't like what Windows 11 looked like.

3 years, and not a single time I had any regrets. Not a single time I thought about moving back.

I went for Mint because I am a filthy casual, and as you put it, that system is a joy to use. On Windows I needed to do yearly fresh installs as I could feel performance degrading as time went on, On Linux the laptop is performing as well if not better than when I freshly installed it.

It's so good that I even donate 20 bucks to the project every year. It has no right of being that good and also free.

About games - not only I can play basically everything in my Steam library, but even installing things from other sources is very easy with minor tinkering. At least to me, Windows became nearly superfluous nowadays.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#452

Post by fingerlocks »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #370
gambiting wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, as a developer there is no beating Visual Studio. Microsoft still makes the best developer IDE that unfortunately only runs on their worst OS. But as a C++ developer there is just no substitute(imho). Not to mention some development toolchains only work on windows(for playstation/xbox/switch) so if you work in games there is very little choice.

I guess downvotes come from people that believe vim + grep + printf debugging is peak development environment. Quite amazing that they even go for something such advanced as vim, instead of sticking with ed, for I believe there exists some Linux user claiming that ed doesn't lack anything that VS has.

No you’re just completely ignorant. You can trivially set breakpoints, use conditional breakpoints, watch variables, step over, through, and into in exactly the same way. Hell, even raw-dogging lldb directly on the CLI is incredibly user friendly, fast, and has a ton features you wish were more exposed by common IDEs. Don’t feel like debugging right now? Take a heap snapshot and do it later! Don’t even need to launch the process.

Visual Studio is ridiculously overrated, and this is coming from someone that works at Microsoft and forced to use it every day. What really kills me are the insanely complicated and unmodifiable shortcut keys for common tasks. Killing the process is like some finger breaking ctrl+alt+function key nonsense? Seriously wtf? Oh to debug multiple binaries simultaneously in the same solution requires launching multiple instances of the entire IDE? Why??

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#453

Post by mzajc »

mort96 wrote: post #432

The stated "reason" makes no sense: > While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use. If they're only worried that their users may end up with an incomplete Windows install, surely the solution is to provide a better way to set up Windows with a loca…

They're not worried about that, they're worried about users not creating and using microsoft accounts. The stated reason could be a paragraph of lorem ipsum and it wouldn't make the press release any less obtuse.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#454

Post by astafrig »

john01dav wrote: post #134
astafrig wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I own this iPad, as in: it's mine. Why should I, and why would I want to put MY device's access and security on the whims of company? Great question! You did configure it that way, so it might be worth asking yourself.

It is impossible to configure recent ipads in any other way. There are no established 3rd party OSes that you can install, even with great effort. IOS does not respect user freedom. As an example, see the restrictions on running code that Apple didn't approve of (directly, or, in the EU, indirectly).

Cool, great. That’s got nothing to do with Activation Lock.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#455

Post by gattilorenz »

bargainbin wrote: post #439
kelseydh wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Linux gaming on Steam actually competitive in performance and availability to what you'll get on Windows? I'm looking into building a gaming computer I'm surprised to hear I could roll with Linux for it.

I’m using Bazzite now for about 8 months, and I have a dual boot Windows drive. I haven’t used the Windows drive once. Windows was my daily driver for 3 decades. Performance wise, there’s no degradation. I can run games at 4k or bonkers FPS just like I did on Windows, no input lag, etc. Bazzite also has a very active discord for support with issues. I highly recommend.

It's unbelievable just how unclear Bazzite's website is.

They don't spell out clearly what Bazzite is. Is it a distro? A layer on top of Steam? Something else? No idea from the first page.

Still on par with Linux UX, I'm afraid :(

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#456

Post by willis936 »

hparadiz wrote: post #450
yxhuvud wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially, the only games that doesn't work nowadays are the ones that intentionally break it by adding Linux-incompatible anti-cheat. This is common among the big AAA-games that are multiplayer (think Fortnite).

Riot games did this on purpose too. League worked perfectly fine on Linux for years until they decided that kernel level spying on users was absolutely necessary to play a moba. For some reason my one friend thinks I'll run windows just for one game.

I'd sooner get a console, personally. The only legitimate use case I have for a console (nintendo notwithstanding) is to sandbox invasive anticheat in multiplayer games. I don't really have a ton of free time or friend group into multiplayer video games, so it's not happening for me. Smart console makers would lean into this.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#457

Post by 3abiton »

naldb wrote: post #344
mythz wrote: post #300

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhappy when a sleazy corp forces me to give up on 25 years of muscle memory of using my preferred OS, but I'm thankful they gave me the push I needed to rip off the ad/spyware laced Windows Band-Aid that I only need to do once in my life. It's been over a year sinc…

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is not that it has improved but that its biggest competitor has dropped the ball? That’s not really praising it.

The argunent is that it forced people to break their habit. Which is always the main hurdle for adoption. There is nothing innovative about Linux 2025 compared to 2024 or 2023, Windows just got worse. I say this as a 12+ years linux user. The biggest shift for the normies was Proton, and we got steam to thank for that. But Linux is more secure, reliable and hard tested as ever.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#458

Post by jmkni »

Marsymars wrote: post #218
ryandrake wrote: post #109

Surely, at the lowest level, there needs to be some kind of a local account. I would imagine ripping out the very concept of a local account to be totally infeasible. As long as that's true, I'd expect there to be a way to create one, even if that way ultimately no longer comes from Microsoft.

AFAIK you can easily create a local account after initial setup and use that for whatever you want. As you allude to, there's a whole bunch of Windows functionality that relies on (or allows) local accounts.

Yeah this is how I did it the last time I setup a Windows machine, I set it up with my Microsoft account initially, created a new local account which was admin, logged in as that and then deleted the Microsoft account.

I'm glad I barely have to touch Windows anymore, it really has gone to shit

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#459

Post by hxii »

While my D2D is MacOS and Windows 10, I’m not a newcomer to Linux and I WISH I could just move myself and my wife to Linux instead of waiting until W10 kicks the bucket.

But until the experience and process are seamless (or at least much more simplified), I honestly cannot see people “just switching”.

I had to jump through SO MANY hoops to stop my case fans from automatically spinning at 100% and getting CoolerControl to work (see it87 and Gigabyte), and it’s still happening, that it’s not even remotely amusing anymore.

Re: Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

#460

Post by anal_reactor »

ivolimmen wrote: post #440
anal_reactor wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Windows since always and switched to Linux two months ago. On one hand I still run into lots of Linuxisms on daily basis and I cannot recommend the system to a non-IT personn - bluetooth crashes, GPU driver crashes, applications crash, devices crash, all that stuff that's always been there. At the same time I have to say that the switch was easier than expected, and last weekend I removed Windows from my drive…

I personally migrated to seniors (70+) to Linux. They both enjoyed it for years. One even found and installed a new driver for their printer when he switched. Plus most ChromeOS users can easily migrate to Linux. For Office I recommend ONLYOFFICE as that looks and behaves mostly the same as Microsoft Office. I haven't experience any issues with drivers but then again I never use NVIDEA, I used AMD and currently an In…

When I put my computer to sleep and then wake it up, sometimes there's no video output until I switch to a different terminal and then back to GUI. How on Earth is a non-IT person supposed to figure this out.

Also, my parents bring home documents from work, and they often get documents from different institutions, which means they already hit edge cases of compatibility issues between different office suites, and telling them "this one sometimes reads docx correctly" is hard sell.

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