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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

#581

Post by samstave »

kchamplewski wrote: post #535
bachmeier wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anyone that even knows what "Domain join" means? If the button was there but hidden, would that count as "still there"? What if it was there but labeled "Click here to brick your computer"?

Domain joining means connecting the machine to a Windows domain allowing domain user accounts to be used, and allowing for the domain to administer the machine. It's actually quite a helpful option to have, but it's completely absurd for the only way to create a local account to be via the domain join option.

Clearly, but that is something us sysads for decades get...

You think that joe mechanic who just bought his daughter a new machine has any of this lexicon.

Whomever is responsible for all of this bullshit at MS should be hit in the face with a shovel.

Recently, and I’ve been in tech since 1997, I bought an office lic at Costco because I needed excel on a machine...

You know what a pain in the ass it is to install office on a generic factory machine with the new bs. They want to tie that install to an outlook account.

Nope. I just want excel this machine won’t even be connected to the internet. But MS says fuck-you-because-thats-why.

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

#582

Post by ulkesh »

zarkov99 wrote: post #576

I don't get why people who have a choice keep taking this abuse. Stockholm Syndrome perhaps? I switched from Windows to Linux about 6 years ago and my computing experience went from having to deal with soul crushing bullshit every day, to feeling productive and in control of my environment again. Sure, there is the initial pain of having to learn a new environment and admittedly the GUI experience is a bit less polis…

Specific games. That’s the only reason I keep running Windows. Otherwise I would be on Linux full time.

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

#583

Post by samstave »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #100

...and from what I can tell, their online account security is craptastic. Here’s a true story that happened to my family. My son is the only person in the house who uses Windows. For his game machine. He set up a Microsoft online account. It got hacked - someone set up a fake family and managed to get my son’s account listed under it as a child. As a consequence, he couldn’t install any new software. I’m not sure wha…

Thanks for that lovely story. It made me laugh at how badly MS is navigating whatever the fuck it is they envision this path they are going down/paving.

However, it did give me a Business Idea; (this is for some hungry 20somethings out there):

Sell a machine image which is basically a windows VM on top of Linux with support, which can handle and navigate all this bullshit that MS is throwing at common users, instead of trying to force the population to become sysads themselves.

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

#584

Post by drngdds »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #42

Microsoft is clearly taking moves that enable "PC as a service". I imagine the end game is something like you pay Microsoft so much a month on a subscription, receive hardware that is preconfigured with and tied to your Microsoft account details or your company's Azure AD configuration and locked down with InTune, unhackable with properly implemented Class 3+ UEFI and Secure Boot, etc. You then purchase additional so…

That seems really unlikely. People are used to devices being things that you buy once and keep forever without a subscription. Why would Microsoft go out on a limb and do something weird like that?

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

#585

Post by drngdds »

klingonopera wrote: post #101

As someone who uses Windows for industrial PCs, I'm pretty appalled. We've been hanging on to Windows 7, including side-loading drivers into the installation image for modern hardware, because this kind of stuff that Windows 10 does is in these cases simply unacceptable (random tip: Go for AMD, their Windows 7 support is way better than Intel, do not use Intel chipset series 300). I can't have PCs bogged down downloa…

I'm pretty sure Windows 10 LTSB exists for this specific use case

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

#586

Post by batrat »

wayneftw wrote: post #492
Kuinox wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't removed it. The title is misleading, The button is still there, but they renamed the button. It's under "Domain Join Instead" https://i.imgur.com/tA9fo1R.png And there you can create an offline account: https://i.imgur.com/eBLi5cv.png

My initial thought was that they completely removed the option only in the Home version of Windows. Since (I don't think) you can join Windows Home to a Domain, is that true? Is the option for a local account now only available in Windows Pro, unless you install Windows Home disconnected from the Internet?

Nope. I recently installed windows home for a friend and I had the option for offline account.

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

#587

Post by abacadaba »

abacadaba wrote: post #471
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.

Not putting effort into making Windows better is different than telling all the .9 billion Win10 users to go f themselves. But still, if all those .9 billion Windows users still decide that FOSS is too hard, who am I gaf?

Man, karma is a bitch. Couple hours in recovery mode dealing with dns issues and reinstalling nvida drivers immediately after posting this. ;)

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

#588

Post by karlding »

panpanna wrote: post #417
bsder wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> This also means that everyone get the same tools (same version, same bugs).

Everywhere I've worked solved this by having the toolchain available via a network share that you would mount/copy, or checked into p4 so that everyone would be on the same version and you would know what compiler version was used to build a particular release. I suppose you could achieve the same thing by building in a Docker container..

This is kind of the idea behind the hermetic environments that Bazel enforces, and is essential if you want bit-for-bit reproducible builds.

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

#589

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

I am unable to replicate these findings and I did 3 fresh installs in a VM. For Ref I used US install media but I am in the EU so maybe they are doing this based on region based on my IP address all 3 test where done while online (couldn't be arsed to VPN to the states to test).

(I only have pro license's to hand, maybe its diff with home licenses, EDIT: Just got a home license. I'll test with that for the shits and giggles off it. But honestly, we should be installing pro for people so we have easier control via group policies anyways BRB testing more now i'm back home.)

First test: I installed a fresh copy of Retail Win 10 Pro 1903 downloaded today from https://microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10iso (Note: unless you fake your UA to be something other than windows it will redirect you to the media creation tool download. Say you are an iphone for example it will happily let you download the raw ISO without the media creation tool) During install it gives me the option to use an offline account in the bottom left [0].

Second test: I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro 18970 insider build from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsins... downloaded today again it gave me the option to use a local account in the bottom left [1]

(note: the two pic's will look the same, but they were taken from the 2 diff iso's - granted it will try its hardest to get me to change my mind during the rest of the set up but the option is there.)

Third Test: I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Pro with obv a local account, I then upgraded 7 pro to 10 1903 pro using the media creation tool, I selected the option to keep my existing files and apps and allowed the upgrade to take. Told setup NO to all the extra's (location, personal ad's etc etc etc) and the install took using the existing local account and didn't prompt me to "upgrade" to an MS account.

As for real hardware I upgraded a friend of the families laptop 2 weeks ago from 7 to 10 using the media creation tool and it again upgraded without pestering for an MS account. (And I'll be upgrading another in the next week or two when they are ready for me to do it. They would rather have the process hand holded for them incase of any oddness during the process, so I'll be able to report back then)

I'll bash MS as much as the next person but I'm unable to replicate these findings. I know they try their hardest to push an MS account onto people (I run the insider build on my personal rig and every major update I get a prompt about all the wonderful things a MS account brings... But I am still able to say Nope, local account thanks :-)

[0] https://cejack.tk/2019-09-29_10-07-10-552.png

[1] https://cejack.tk/2019-09-29_10-21-05-939.png

EDIT: Fresh install with home and they moved the offline button. Typed in some random numbers in the account bar [2] and it gave me the option to use an offline account on the next page [3] which then took me though the process of creating a local account [4] - Is it an annoying dark pattern? Yes. Did they remove local accounts? Nope.

[2] https://cejack.tk/2019-09-29_17-32-57-607.png

[3] https://cejack.tk/2019-09-29_17-33-17-029.png

[4] https://cejack.tk/2019-09-29_17-36-37-343.png

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

#590

Post by cwojno »

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…

I'm using Overgrive, but I can't say that I recommend it. Some files cause it to freeze and crash and you have little control over source and destination folders. I've also experienced a situation where it deleted a folder somehow. I lost data in that episode :(.

Sometimes, I have to wait for a linux port, but the games usually are on sale by then anyway ;).

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