People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by legacynl » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

sidkshatriya wrote: post #86

john_strinlai wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. i agree with most of what you said, but this is borderline fantasy. the majority of home market share is not guaranteed, sure. with how good gaming is on non-windows machines now, there isnt much for a home user to get locked-in with (except games that require windows-only malware i.e. anti…

Decline often happens slowly, gradually and then suddenly. Could anybody imagine Intel where it is now ? This could happen to Microsoft and is probably already happening as we speak.

Perhaps on the consumer front. But if you have some 30yr old factory with machines, those machines probably use windows software, and you can be reasonably sure that that software will still run in 20 years.

It's not like apple just deciding that we don't do 32bit applications anymore all of a sudden. However many ads MS will shove in windows, as long as they can run software that they depend on, companies and factories won't care.

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

#592

Post by throawayonthe » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #66

longislandguido wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Neo costs $200 more than a comparable Windows laptop, but with half the RAM and storage as said comparable Windows laptop. They're fighting to seize the very specific market segment of "I don't like Windows and don't want to use Linux or a Chromebook, and I'm also poor, but still want to pay a premium price for an underpowered tablet with keyboard glued to it."

Can you recommend a Windows laptop in the $400 range? I'm interested in a craptop for various Windows things that still pop up from time to time.

if you're in the US/Canada, you could do much worse than going on the "windows laptops on sale" page of bestbuy, e.g. this one is 330: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-vivobook-14-14-fhd-lapt...

i don't think it makes much sense to recommend specific craptops, every manufacturer seems to have a bazillion SKUs they reset every six months in that price range... buy whatever's on sale :p

or buy used of course

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

#593

Post by celsoazevedo » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

ninjagoo wrote: post #514

celsoazevedo wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand pointing out that an upgrade failure should be expected when Ubuntu tells you that upgrades won't work, but I don't agree with calling the Pi a "device for experimentation". Not only it's used for serious applications in industrial settings, but some products are sold as... personal computers: > Raspberry Pi 500 > The refined personal computer. > A fast, powerful computer built into a high-quality keyboa…

Isn't the standard OS for that platform not Ubuntu? From that link: "... Raspberry Pi OS is made to get the most from your Raspberry Pi 500."

Yes. Perhaps the fix for @Arainach would be to stick with the official OS.

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

#594

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

abustamam wrote: post #567

brookst wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Security isn't an unqualified good. You're always secure something from some threat. Keeping the subject and the threat actor implicit is causing confusion in minds of many tech people, and is in part the reason how we land in situations like this.

Windows is not just an operating system on your computer. It is a product (nowadays, a service) of Microsoft. Some security systems in it are meant to protect the PC/system/user from external threats. Others are meant to protect Microsoft, and Windows as a product/service, from the user.

Being specific about what is being protected and from whom, is more important than specifics of the actual security technology. After all, depending on the answers to those two questions, the very same security technology is protecting you from a cyber-criminal installing a rootkit on your PC, protecting Microsoft from you pirating Windows, and protecting copyright interests from you trying to watch a movie in a geographic location they don't want you to watch it in.

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

#595

Post by legacynl » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

hhlevnjak2 wrote: post #62

ooterness wrote: post #3

Too little, too late. I switched to Linux and I'm never looking back. Good riddance, Microsoft.

I recently changed my distro to Bazzite expecting it to work well on a laptop since it's supposedly optimized for handhelds. While it "just works" and I had no hardware problems, it still required tweaking to get the battery life anywhere close to what it would be in Windows. "Normal people" would still need someone to support them with the installation to get it to work well for their machine.

The website of Bazzite says it comes with 'cpu-governors that are optimized for gaming'. A governor basically decides when and how to change the power level of your CPU. If a core is experiencing high load, it might increase power and clockspeeds to compensate. Of course this draws more power, so 'optimized for gaming' kind of means unoptimized for battery. I think most distros come with a 'power-saver' governor by default. This option should be available in power settings called 'governor' or 'power profile' or something like that.

Also, I recently switched from KDE Plasma (one of the Bazzite options) to xfce4 and I've seen massive gains in battery life, about 1-2hrs extra. I don't remember how many hours I used to get on win10 on this laptop, but I'm sure it has never been as good as this.

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

#596

Post by anthk » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

tmtvl wrote: post #590

anthk wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9front tells me otherwise. It's security model with namespaces and rfork it's far more tuned to modern times than the GNU/Linux or BSD one where even wth mitigations and the like a good crafted NES sound file (6502 code in the end, as C64 MOD files) could cause mayhem on some buffer overflow executing x86 code. rio(1) windows under plan9/9front have their own namespace and OFC you can restrict these per windows makin…

How's the a11y story under Plan 9? I always thought of Plan 9 as being very forward thinking for its time but unfortunately stuck in the past in various ways, but are there screen readers and voice input and everything?

nothing yet but an flite port. But by design it's far easier than with X and/or with DBUS.

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

#597

Post by zadikian » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

debazel wrote: post #481

zadikian wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac doesn't require an Apple ID to use. iPhone only needs one for installing apps, and my only complaint is it's the strictest auth check on the entire phone besides disabling the account. Shouldn't need to input the Apple ID password just to install a free app, shouldn't even ask for passcode.

An iPhone without an Apple account is about as useful as brick because you can't load your own software onto it without the store.

You can if you have the source code, but I think that requires at least signing with a free account.

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

#598

Post by anthk » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

quyse wrote: post #470

Atlas26 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script. Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years. Yup. Fr…

I had Windows on a Lenovo laptop, and Windows update installed and/or re-enabled Lenovo system services almost every time (those included things like popups helpfully telling you that you pressed CapsLock and crap like this). I ran debloating scripts, tried fiddling with policies, etc, but Windows Update would inevitably bring those services back. Another thing is Intel drivers. There's official Intel driver assistan…

Install "Bulk Crap uninstaller", which is libre software. Begin uninstalling every bloatware you find.

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

#599

Post by tombert » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

seb1204 wrote: post #480

tombert wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought my mother in law a Lenovo Thinkbook for Christmas; I didn't know that the Macbook Neo was coming else I might have waited for that. Anyway, I installed Linux Mint on there. She has been using it every day and at least according to her there hasn't really been any jank (and I told her to call me any time if something breaks and I'll fix it). At this point, I think Linux distros have gotten good enough to real…

Great, I did the same some years ago with xubutu. Did you set up some remote control software to log in if needed? Which one?

I actually have just used tmate to log into stuff since most things can be driven by command line.

We got her set up with Discord so she can screen share if she needs to.

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

#600

Post by tonymet » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #374

tonymet wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

password changes or deleting the account will lock out the local credential .

How, if the computer's offline?

yes it would wait for the next online check. But what are offline computers doing these days?