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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

#461
post #458

Used to be that you shouldn't install Windows online to prevent getting exploited by malware before you had a chance to patch. Now it looks like one has to install offline to prevent getting adware and all kinds of other things, what amazing progress. As somebody still stuck on Win7 I'm dreading the change, sadly Linux is not really an option because I like my PC gaming. Any good resources on what to look out for whe…

> sadly Linux is not really an option because I like my PC gaming. This is changing and very quickly with Valve Proton. I would advise you try your gaming collection in Steam on Linux. It is getting to the point where one can purchase a game and it will likely just work, with the exception of a few DRM nasties.

It really depends on your video game tastes, I think. There are now essentially three types of games which I enjoy playing:

1) Indie games;

2) Big studio releases (some of them);

3) Competitive online 3D shooters.

My experience is that 1) usually work well on Linux and the small studios these days usually make sure it works on Mac and Linux, which is great.

I do not know of any games in the 2) category that really do work on Linux (Activision, Ubisoft and EA simply don't care) and this actually impacts me in 3) -- unless I want to play a 7 year old CS:GO, I am out of luck on Linux.

(Just to be clear, I am saying this as a person that has Linux at work & on my laptop and who would really love to get rid of my Win 10 on my gaming desktop PC. For gaming lovers with different tastes, I think the situation actually is not that bad if you are willing to have a console at home -- you can cover 1) and 2) this way, just not 3).)

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

#462
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…

> The rest of the list is mostly: I don't believe/agree with you.

All of what I mentioned is documented on my site and in a lot of cases I've recorded and published unedited videos of my WSL (v1) / Docker based dev environment.

You are free to believe what you want, but I'm not lying. If it were not as good as a claimed I wouldn't be using it for full time development / video creation.

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

#463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of them have fiduciary responsibility to not add/change/upgrade software without carefully testing it first. While that makes a lot of sense will it remain a requirement if/when it's simply not a choice with any major vendor? Can smaller vendors still provide that choice and meet all the necessary certificates that such industries often also require? (Serious question, not trolling.)

There is WSUS. Group Policy is a very powerful tool. Get control of your updates!

This is one of the things that disgust me about dealing with Windows.

Oh, you want to properly administrate your Windows? You can't unless you buy another Windows! But a more expensive one!

You are unable to wade through our byzantine licensing maze? Buy another Windows to manage that!

Expensive Microsoft solutions for problems created by Microsoft. And then there's this entire army of sods that think this is the best thing since sliced bread, telling you "Isn't it fantastic that Microsoft provides this wonderful solution?"

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

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latest excel has gold level support: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI... I know there are plenty of things that don't work with wine, but realistically, how many of them does each person need to work, and how many are "defaults"? For example if you spend 90% of your time in illustrator, do you need excel specifically, or "an app with text in cells"? And if you're crunching market data in e…

> Latest excel has gold level support "The test results for this version are very old" "What works: "Basic editing of the slides (inserting and formatting texts, images)"" "What was not tested: "Advanced functionality"" ---- Nobody has tested it recently, nobody knows if "advanced" features work, and they think it's PowerPoint. What does 'Gold' mean?

> Nobody has tested it recently

Whatever worked is highly unlikely to stop working. You can expect better support than in past test.

> What does 'Gold' mean?

https://wiki.winehq.org/AppDB_Rating_Definitions

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

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up Bitwig studio as a replacement for Ableton Live. I know it's an expensive tool to replace, but its workflow is very similar to Ableton Live and it supports Linux.

Oh of course, I like Bitwig very much! The modular engine ("Grid") is great! But I have a lot of material from the past in Live so, even if I switch to Bitwig, I may still need to use Live from time to time. But I guess a Win VM would suffice for that type of usage.

Can confirm, was able to run Live 9 on W7 in VirtualBox on ~decade-old hardware earlier this year. It was easy and worked like a charm. Was running Arch Linux at the time, and used the VM images from here: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...

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

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's been obscured though, IIRC, isn't there small text on a same colour (darker shade) background outside the edge of a box. I've only done a handful of Win 10 installs, I just remember being confused "how do you do it without an account again", it has not been clear.

I definitely had to Google how as I missed this text in my latest install

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

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why N VMs? You had one before, you can have one VM with multiple apps (if you can even count office parts as multiple apps)

Sorry, kinda mixed the "Need office" requirement I wrote about and my previous "Different VMs for different needs" (Office was one, a Windows product I build extensions for was in another, then the corporate environment tends to keep VMware images around to simulate a customer environment / to prepare a demo system for sales etc etc). You're right. One VM could work for office and other utilities. Unfortunately for m…

I think Qubes OS targets your use case. It has support for Windows 7 although I never got around to trying it out.

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

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, is this not a website for hackers and entrepreneurs whose response to unemployment is starting your own business? Or am I in the wrong place?

a) the way you say "hackers and entrepreneurs" as two separate groups, suggests they are two separate groups. b) if true as claimed, why would such people as you imagine being here ever experience "unemployment" in the first place?

I get that there are plenty of "job-hoppers" here. I wish they would start more businesses instead.

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

#470

It's funny how expectations being set differently can lead to such massively different reactions. Chrome OS or Android devices require Google accounts? No problem. Windows requires a Microsoft account? So angry! I think there's also something to be said for the ubiquity and usefulness of these accounts outside of the OS setup. I don't really feel that I need a Microsoft account in my life and I can't say for certain…

You're confusing Android with Google Services?

When you buy most Android phones and want to use them in the way most people do, you're going to be dancing with Google Services.
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