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People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

windowscentral.com

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Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#561

Post by devilbunny »

drewda wrote: post #27
grujicd wrote: post #12

This "make Windows better" push is far more political than technological. It's a fight with other divisions about using Windows as a marketing and sales channel for other products and services. It has to be a decision from the very top. I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. It's not just 10% of revenue, it's a foundation for how…

FWIW I've been on a OS X for many years now, but I still miss keyboard shortcuts in Windows. So much more consistent across the operating system and applications...

I’m going to use Cunningham’s Law here.

Windows menu navigation by keyboard allows almost everything to be done with no mouse, and macOS doesn’t. Alt-space, X will maximize a window from 3.0 to 11. Not a direct shortcut, more like the / menu of Visicalc or Lotus 1-2-3. Not as fast, but close, and better because it’s discoverable - if you forget, the menu is open and you can see the next step.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#562

Post by figmert »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #553
figmert wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, you say you prefer Windows over macOS, but it sounds to me like you're fighting your OS. MacOS has a lot of flaws, but at least I'm not fighting it. If I say to do something, it does it. It doesn't suddenly revert your decision.

Alternatively: you're not fighting your OS because you know you can't win, so you give up before even considering fight as an option. Windows is super annoying to power users in large part because you know it can be beaten into submission with enough effort, but that effort is usually just not worth it.

Exactly! And this was a huge reason why I switched to Linux as my primary OS. For a while the only problem for me was gaming, but that's less of an issue now because of Valve but more so because I kinda stopped playing games.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#563

Post by figmert »

unleaded wrote: post #545
figmert wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, you say you prefer Windows over macOS, but it sounds to me like you're fighting your OS. MacOS has a lot of flaws, but at least I'm not fighting it. If I say to do something, it does it. It doesn't suddenly revert your decision.

My sentiment with windows (likely shared by most people here consciously using it) is that it's a good OS at heart somwhere. The core of it is very solid and has been for a while, and most of the crap parts that people complain about (see above) are "tacked on" to it and could fairly easily be removed/reverted if Microsoft wanted to (in fact they already have done, see IoT Enterprise LTSC and Windows Server), and it…

> don't know much about MacOS but the same isn't really true of [desktop] Linux. Most of its flaws are not easily fixed in the same way and are much deeper architectural/social issues that require a lot of work to fix.

I'm not sure where you got this, but I've been a fulltime Linux user for near 2 decades, and I promise you almost everything is fixable. The biggest issues are drivers, but even then you're bound to find someone who has developed some drivers or if not, you can develop your own if you have the skill or pay someone if you don't.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#564

Post by albert_e »

Is this a reaction in part to the threat posed by the launch of very affordable Macbook Neo; and partly the rise of AI Agents like Cowork that will drive massive demand and scale of sanboxes and virtual machines and Windows OS is not a great fit for that today.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#565

Post by lloydatkinson »

layer8 wrote: post #231

For what it’s worth, `start ms-cxh: localonly` after Shift+F10 during installation still works. Another way is to prepare a custom installation image. Of course, such workarounds shouldn’t be needed, so this is nevertheless a good fight.

I use Rufus boot to change downloaded ISOs to allow local accounts and bypass other nonsense. Like TPM and other crap. This allows me to use 11 on my PC I built in 2015.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#566

Post by lloydatkinson »

red_admiral wrote: post #518

If you can't set up without an account, this should work, no? 1. Create an admin user "setup" with a throwaway Microsoft account on first boot. 2. From there, create a local user "admin". 3. Reboot into "admin" with internet off, delete "setup", and run a bunch of deshittification scripts to get rid of AppX(Provisioned)Packages.

Why go through all that instead of updating the ISO to bypass all that?

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#567

Post by abustamam »

brookst wrote: post #546
cesarb wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. [...] OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. As I've said before ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44923555 ), in my opinion the starting point of this slide for Microsoft was WGA on Windows XP. It w…

Not coincidentally, that was around when Microsoft really internalized that they are an enterprise company, not a consumer company. In enterprises, the local user IS hostile, or at least some percentage of them are. The ethos of “we can’t trust end users” leaked from enterprise fixation into general Microsoft culture.

Local user being hostile should be a user group setting in enterprise versions, not a default across all versions of them.

But now that I think of it, I was pretty hostile to my computer when I was ten years old and running windows 2000. I don't think we ever saw so many pop-ups before.

But even so, the admins of the computer system should have control over their computers. I can understand if my mom's user profile might have limitation, but the my admin profile should not.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#568

Post by xnyan »

OliveMate wrote: post #277

I think the decreasing fondness of Windows can mostly be blamed on Microsoft forcing their internet services on users; with the need for Microsoft accounts being the most recent & damning of the bunch. You had gadgets in Vista & 7, but they could easily be disabled. 8 had live tiles for things like the news (effortlessly removable) and introduced the Microsoft Store (which increasingly needs an account). 8.1 added Bi…

Microsoft lost me, longtime windows user, when they started fucking with the start menu. I play a lot of games, and was willing to tolerate a lot of abuse to avoid the hassle of changing platforms, but they literally injected MSN tabloid news article results and aware like candy crush above the local applications I was clearly trying to open.

There are definitely concerning trends with the direction of macOS development, but I still maintain a Windows 11 PC in a closet that just runs steam to play games and holy shit it makes Tacoma feel like the pinnacle of UI design and consistency.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#569

Post by xnyan »

chocochunks wrote: post #112
kstrauser wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for $100 less, you get a markedly lower-DPI screen that's 40% dimmer, a slower CPU, hotter running, and a worse chassis. Almost no one's going to be slapping multiple external monitors on either of these. If they did, they might run into the problem where the Acer is often limited to 640x480: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/733442/have-a-new-a... That is not remotely in the same category as the Neo.

You get twice as much RAM, twice as much storage. 4x faster storage too. You get a full sized HDMI port. You can do multiple monitors if you need to. It has a fan for better sustained performance. You can plug in a flash drive, mouse, monitor or other external peripheral without a dongle. Oh, and it's actually COOLER running than the Neo. The Neo costs a $100 more, needs a $30 dongle to connect to 90% of the stuff pe…

> It's different compromises.

Completely agree. In my current role, I work with a lot more "normal" computer users, and it's helped me have a better understanding of many consumer technologies from different perspectives

I have seen the survey results and work studies for our large enterprise of Mac users, most (not all, but most) have zero change in satisfaction or perceived or objective work performance with 8GB vs 16GB MacBooks. Most users are swapping between outlook, teams and chrome, anything more than an M2 8GB MacBook Pro would be a waste for these users. Disk performance is similar, anything in the M line is more than good enough for 75%+ of our users. Mac screens and keyboards have very high customer satisfaction in our org. Just like 16 GB of RAM, it does not translate to a measurable increase in work performance, but subjectively people report higher satisfaction.

As for cost, the MacBook has a lower total cost of ownership in our organization than a Windows PC at a similar purchase price because: 1) longer OS support timeline from apple means they can be used longer and 2) at the end of their lifespan with us, they have much higher resale value than comparable windows hardware.

Just a different perspective as to why 8GB MacBooks make sense for some users.

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