8 ms·

Microsoft has been using this dark pattern for a while now. Around 1-2 years ago, I upgraded MS Office on my Windows laptop. It asked me for my username/passwo

Microsoft has been using this dark pattern for a while now. Around 1-2 years ago, I upgraded MS Office on my Windows laptop. It asked me for my username/password-- which I didnt think strange, as I assumed it needed it to upgrade. And thats when I got a message "Good news! Your Windows machine now uses your Microsoft to login." W.T.F. I was never asked, never warned, just tricked into replacing my local login with an online one. Took me 10-20 minutes of Googling to get my original setting back. I have now turned off ALL updates for Windows-- it is my backup machine, for a few programs that only run on Windows. Every update on Windows scared me (and still does), as I dont know what dark pattern they will try this time.

teekert 5y ago
Do you really need Windows? Our family laptop runs Linux, it does Teams for school, MineCraft, Netflix. You could do Office365 from a browser, although I admit, it is less than ideal. But it seems like you are almost at the emotional state make the jump... what's holding you back? I bought a Dell Latitude E5450 for 350 eur about 2 years back. It was used but looked new. It came with Win 10 Pro, which sits on my NAS as a gzipped bit for bit copy now. Everything works out of the box on Ubuntu 20.04 and will continue to work until it dies far from now. I can open the thing up and replace everything I would expect I could replace (inc battery). It's all I need speed-wise. If the kids drop it I won't cry. Fun fact: When I play MineCraft with my son (I do it from my work Win 10 computer), he has has booted, started MineCraft and dug a hole to bedrock before I even get to click on the MineCraft icon. The thing is fast and snappy and remains so. I made accounts for both kids and they can do many things themselves, perhaps because the UI looks more like an iPad than Windows does (i.e., hit the menu and a grid of icons fly in to fill the screen.) I'm dreading the day they ask for a local install of Office365 though... Or something like Adobe's tools. So far my oldest is 8 and it hasn't happened.
- tsjq 5y ago
  Very well said. Fully agree with you. Both the personal desktops in my home, including the one used by my Sr Citizen non-techie Dad : are Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Thanks for sharing this constructive and helpful info.
- Terretta 5y ago
  Minecraft for kids is arguably safer on Bedrock servers and clients with the parental controls managed through the Microsoft account. While Mojang made efforts, the premise of the Java version was unrestricted server community and that remains the dominant paradigm. Not everything should be for kids, not saying “think of the children” and use Win10 or iOS, just commenting on a less known value-add of a Microsoft Account for Minecraft parents: How does Minecraft keep my child safe? With the Better Together update now out on Windows 10, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, and recently Playstation 4, any parent or guardian can rest comfortably knowing that there are a few systems in place to keep their child safe. [And able to cross play with friends on any of those.] If your child is playing the Java Edition of Minecraft then they're still being protected by all the great features Mojang has baked into the legendary game. However, the Java Edition of Minecraft does not require Xbox Live integration since it does not support crossplay with other devices, and therefore loses out on many of the parental control features parents enjoy elsewhere. If your child is playing Minecraft on PC, it might be worth getting them the Windows 10 version instead. It's always on-par with every other platform for new features and updates, supports crossplay between platforms so your child can play with more of their friends, and can be moderated by Xbox Live and Microsoft Account parental controls. That's a win-win-win. https://www.windowscentral.com/minecraft-guide-how-keep-your-children-safe-online-parental-settings https://www.windowscentral.com/minecraft-guide-how-keep-your... // Note that summer camps tend to require the Bedrock version and Microsoft account for this reason. It’s possible to get interop, unofficially, e.g.: BedrockConnect: https://github.com/Pugmatt/BedrockConnect https://github.com/Pugmatt/BedrockConnect Geyser: https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser/wiki/Supported-Hosting-Providers https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser/wiki/Supported-Hosting-Pr...
  - teekert 5y ago
    I only ever saw my son make his own worlds locally and we play together on my own server [0], where I have 2 worlds currently. Sometimes Bedrock friends join, I installed GeyserMC for that (as you also mentioned) [1]. It was indeed a great pain to get the girls from next door to join with their Android tablets, it required multiple back and forths between me and their father... So that was why. To be honest it does annoy me that they had to give up so many private details to get the benefits of this "outsourced protection". Well, my philosophy is to be there, check in on them, educate them about dangerous stuff but also to let them explore. I'll handle more difficult stuff through AdGuard when the time comes. The kid knows not to do weird things on their own. I regularly explain to them that the internet is like a jungle. Don't just wander off without me and my digital machete by your side, I tell them ;) [0] https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server [1] https://geysermc.org/ https://geysermc.org/
- anyonecancode 5y ago
  Roblox. I had my kids on linux originally, but there's no linux version of Roblox, and the proposed workarounds I found were unreliable, out of date, or more work than I was willing to invest in.
  - teekert 5y ago
    Oh no, I'm just going to have to hope they won't ask for it before Proton (or something) starts supporting it :) But you are right, a time may come when they will want Windows. Although my wife's computer runs it (needs it as a teacher), so they may use that for Win only stuff. I'll deal with it when the time comes. I could do a VM with GPU pass-through and Steam client... Although that may also turn out to be more than I'm willing to invest (and essentially you still run Windows). Or maybe I'll dual boot...
    - peapicker 5y ago
      Won’t the Steam client also ask you for a phone number as soon as you want to buy anything? How do you decide where to draw the line?
      - jholman 5y ago
        I don't think Steam wants any more from me than any other payment processor. And for that matter, if you don't want to give them CC/address, you can use Steam gift cards, right? I confess I'm not sure; I've trusted Valve with a very specific part of my life (buying games) for nearly 20 years now, and they've held up their end of the bargain the entire time. My trust in them has paid off (so far!)
  - bennyp101 5y ago
    Probably not overly helpful, but there was a post yesterday about Roblox working on Wine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27651224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27651224
  - fragileone 5y ago
    Roblox works on Linux as of this week, there was a post here a few days ago.
- wiredfool 5y ago
  You're probably not going to be able to use that bit for bit copy later. I did something similar with my last linux laptop, and none of the workarounds to put the partitions back worked when I needed a quick windows test machine.
  - teekert 5y ago
    Actually I did the same with My wife's Asus, I dd-ed the whole drive, gzipped it and ran Linux for a year. Then I restored it. It worked fine. I guess I won't run into problems as long as the drive is the same drive, or perhaps a bigger one.
  - teekert 5y ago
    I think the problem would be the partitions, perhaps try the whole drive end to end next time?
- fish45 5y ago
  Funny anecdote, I installed Ubuntu on my own laptop to improve my minecraft FPS when I was 9 (~9 years ago). I googled something like "how to get more fps in minecraft" and the first result was a minecraft forum post to which the only response was "install Ubuntu". At the time, Ubuntu had a .exe installer, so I thought it was just like any other program and installed it to my C: drive along with everything else. I think I did have the concept of other OS since I'd used both Windows and MacOS previously, so I figured it out after the reboot. It did increase my minecraft FPS from ~15 to ~30 on average, so I didn't have any complaints. I stuck with that laptop until high school, when I got a new laptop and started dual-booting Windows for gaming and Linux for everything else, which is where I'm at now.
  - rambambram 5y ago
    Indeed funny! What happened after you installed the .exe Ubuntu? You clicked the icon and then ..? I'm just past the 'stage' you're in now, I recently deleted my partition running Windows (kept it for GTA5). Only Ubuntu now.
    - vvatermelone 5y ago
      Are you able to play GTAV on linux? Or just given up on the ability to play it? That and a few racing sims are the only things keeping me on windows these days.
      - godshatter 5y ago
        Not the person you're replying to (and I don't play GTAV), but you can look here to see if it works in Steam via Proton: https://www.protondb.com/app/271590 https://www.protondb.com/app/271590 It's rated Gold, and appears to work out of the box for some people, others have had to add an option to the command line that Steams uses to run it, and some people have seen some problems running it. If you do end up going this route and try it, please file a report on protondb letting others know how it went.
      - squarefoot 5y ago
        Apparently GTAV runs quite well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_69huFZSLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_69huFZSLA You may also want to check out PlayOnLinux which eases the creation of sandboxed installations for different Windows software (not just games), in which each one could use its own Wine version, libraries, modules etc. https://www.playonlinux.com/en/ https://www.playonlinux.com/en/
- lancepioch 5y ago
  > Do you really need Windows? Probably not, unless you are a gamer.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I unfortunately kept all my backups as NTFS and I maintained that for a while because "legacy" and I was lazy. Converting them all is gonna take a while. So I'm sort of waiting until it's inevitable.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > Converting them all is gonna take a while What sort of backups? (My experience is that) NTFS filesystems mount just fine on other OSes, particular Linux.
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      I have over 2TB's of data. While yes I can read them on linux, it it's always perfect and there are issues regarding permissions on occasion or an issue where it doesn't recognize the directory for some odd reason. No idea if it's a linux issue, the standard ntfs reader I have on my distro, or what. But, I figure if I'm going all out linux, might as well make it difficult to jump back out :)
      - f1refly 5y ago
        2TB is not much at all. Tip from experience: Don't touch your important ntfs data with the linux drivers, instead get an ext/btrfs driver for windows. winbtrfs[1] is stable and works great for that purpose. [1] https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs
        MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        Hey thanks! I'll have to look into this more but would you recommend ext4 or btrfs? I just want something that will last, not necessarily the latest and greatest.
        f1refly 5y ago
        Although I don't feel qualified to answer this, I'd recommend ext4. It just works. They are trying to achieve the one fs to rule them all with btrfs, but I'm not too sure how stable it is at the moment. It had a lot of issues in the past, and if you don't plan to use subvolumes, screenshots etc you're better off using ext4. Fun story: I once had an issue where I couldn't do anything with my btrfs volume because it ran out of metadata space and I couldn't even tell it to allocate more. The solution wsa to grab a usb drive, format it with btrfs, make a volume group so more metadata space would be available to the filesystem, then make it allocate more space on the normal ssd. Everything was fine after removing the flashdrive from the volume group. It was a scary evening.
- pradn 5y ago
  Windows just works. I can't remember the last time I had a driver issue with wifi or had an issue with new hardware working. Every game targets Windows first, so they all work without any extra work. My computer is a tool, and I don't want to spend any of my free time configuring things, like I have when running Linux in the past. I spent enough of my time at work doing that!
  - Zardoz84 5y ago
    Since was the last time that you try using Linux?. Sounds like you try it like 20 years ago. Actually Linux f works out the box
  - patrick451 5y ago
    Every time I install windows, I spend easily half a day hunting down drivers. All of this is installed automatically with linux, and especially Ubuntu installs. The last time I installed windows, I got two black strips on either side of the display. No amount of GPU driver shenanigans would fix it. It worked first try on linux.
    - kinjba11 5y ago
      Anecdotal of course, but I've had the opposite experience. When I install Windows, the first thing I do is let Windows Update take care of everything. You could say it's "installed automatically". The only drivers I've needed to install in the past 5 years was Nvidia drivers for graphics cards or the odd printer driver. And downloading these drivers is super easy taking 5 minutes at most - the first search result for "nvidia download drivers" is the correct one. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but every time I've installed Linux something with the drivers always breaks - video playback is choppy, wireless drops randomly, audio breaks, the fingerprint reader doesn't work. Using WSL2 or a VM is much easier when I want Linux.
    - pradn 5y ago
      We're all talking anecdotes, but all I have to do is install the NVIDIA driver updater and I'm good to go.
    - 5y ago
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  Still haven't found a way to digitally sign a pdf with a smart card on Linux, unfortunately. If anyone knows how, I'd love a tip. Last thing I absolutely can't do except on Windows, and it is required by a lot of DoD processes I have to follow.
  - jurgemaister 5y ago
    Perhaps this[1] is a solution? [1]: https://signer.digital/SignerDigitalBrowserExtensions https://signer.digital/SignerDigitalBrowserExtensions
jptech 5y ago
Even without an MS account, when using Microsoft Store with a local account, I won't be surprised if they used some hardware fingerprint such as MAC address to assign a unique ID to that account.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Wait until you hear about the combination of hardware identifiers they use to validate that your license is only being used on one computer.
- Merad 5y ago
  I don't know about use of the store in general, but if you use the MS store to buy a Windows license they automatically convert your account and link the license to that account. Source: built a new PC a few weeks ago and naively assumed they'd just give me a product key or ask how I wanted to receive it.
- entropy1111 5y ago
  They add a unique identifier to EFIVARS. That's why if you install a MS store application without being logged in, completely wipe/replace your disks you can still see the list of previous installed applications in the store.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Don't know why you are downvoted, they do exactly that. Probably since a decade. They connect license and hardware ids.

teekert 5y ago

Do you really need Windows? Our family laptop runs Linux, it does Teams for school, MineCraft, Netflix. You could do Office365 from a browser, although I admit, it is less than ideal. But it seems like you are almost at the emotional state make the jump... what's holding you back? I bought a Dell Latitude E5450 for 350 eur about 2 years back. It was used but looked new. It came with Win 10 Pro, which sits on my NAS as a gzipped bit for bit copy now. Everything works out of the box on Ubuntu 20.04 and will continue to work until it dies far from now. I can open the thing up and replace everything I would expect I could replace (inc battery). It's all I need speed-wise. If the kids drop it I won't cry. Fun fact: When I play MineCraft with my son (I do it from my work Win 10 computer), he has has booted, started MineCraft and dug a hole to bedrock before I even get to click on the MineCraft icon. The thing is fast and snappy and remains so. I made accounts for both kids and they can do many things themselves, perhaps because the UI looks more like an iPad than Windows does (i.e., hit the menu and a grid of icons fly in to fill the screen.) I'm dreading the day they ask for a local install of Office365 though... Or something like Adobe's tools. So far my oldest is 8 and it hasn't happened.

tsjq 5y ago
Very well said. Fully agree with you. Both the personal desktops in my home, including the one used by my Sr Citizen non-techie Dad : are Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Thanks for sharing this constructive and helpful info.
Terretta 5y ago
Minecraft for kids is arguably safer on Bedrock servers and clients with the parental controls managed through the Microsoft account. While Mojang made efforts, the premise of the Java version was unrestricted server community and that remains the dominant paradigm. Not everything should be for kids, not saying “think of the children” and use Win10 or iOS, just commenting on a less known value-add of a Microsoft Account for Minecraft parents: How does Minecraft keep my child safe? With the Better Together update now out on Windows 10, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, and recently Playstation 4, any parent or guardian can rest comfortably knowing that there are a few systems in place to keep their child safe. [And able to cross play with friends on any of those.] If your child is playing the Java Edition of Minecraft then they're still being protected by all the great features Mojang has baked into the legendary game. However, the Java Edition of Minecraft does not require Xbox Live integration since it does not support crossplay with other devices, and therefore loses out on many of the parental control features parents enjoy elsewhere. If your child is playing Minecraft on PC, it might be worth getting them the Windows 10 version instead. It's always on-par with every other platform for new features and updates, supports crossplay between platforms so your child can play with more of their friends, and can be moderated by Xbox Live and Microsoft Account parental controls. That's a win-win-win. https://www.windowscentral.com/minecraft-guide-how-keep-your-children-safe-online-parental-settings https://www.windowscentral.com/minecraft-guide-how-keep-your... // Note that summer camps tend to require the Bedrock version and Microsoft account for this reason. It’s possible to get interop, unofficially, e.g.: BedrockConnect: https://github.com/Pugmatt/BedrockConnect https://github.com/Pugmatt/BedrockConnect Geyser: https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser/wiki/Supported-Hosting-Providers https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser/wiki/Supported-Hosting-Pr...
- teekert 5y ago
  I only ever saw my son make his own worlds locally and we play together on my own server [0], where I have 2 worlds currently. Sometimes Bedrock friends join, I installed GeyserMC for that (as you also mentioned) [1]. It was indeed a great pain to get the girls from next door to join with their Android tablets, it required multiple back and forths between me and their father... So that was why. To be honest it does annoy me that they had to give up so many private details to get the benefits of this "outsourced protection". Well, my philosophy is to be there, check in on them, educate them about dangerous stuff but also to let them explore. I'll handle more difficult stuff through AdGuard when the time comes. The kid knows not to do weird things on their own. I regularly explain to them that the internet is like a jungle. Don't just wander off without me and my digital machete by your side, I tell them ;) [0] https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server [1] https://geysermc.org/ https://geysermc.org/
anyonecancode 5y ago
Roblox. I had my kids on linux originally, but there's no linux version of Roblox, and the proposed workarounds I found were unreliable, out of date, or more work than I was willing to invest in.
- teekert 5y ago
  Oh no, I'm just going to have to hope they won't ask for it before Proton (or something) starts supporting it :) But you are right, a time may come when they will want Windows. Although my wife's computer runs it (needs it as a teacher), so they may use that for Win only stuff. I'll deal with it when the time comes. I could do a VM with GPU pass-through and Steam client... Although that may also turn out to be more than I'm willing to invest (and essentially you still run Windows). Or maybe I'll dual boot...
  - peapicker 5y ago
    Won’t the Steam client also ask you for a phone number as soon as you want to buy anything? How do you decide where to draw the line?
    - jholman 5y ago
      I don't think Steam wants any more from me than any other payment processor. And for that matter, if you don't want to give them CC/address, you can use Steam gift cards, right? I confess I'm not sure; I've trusted Valve with a very specific part of my life (buying games) for nearly 20 years now, and they've held up their end of the bargain the entire time. My trust in them has paid off (so far!)
- bennyp101 5y ago
  Probably not overly helpful, but there was a post yesterday about Roblox working on Wine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27651224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27651224
- fragileone 5y ago
  Roblox works on Linux as of this week, there was a post here a few days ago.
wiredfool 5y ago
You're probably not going to be able to use that bit for bit copy later. I did something similar with my last linux laptop, and none of the workarounds to put the partitions back worked when I needed a quick windows test machine.
- teekert 5y ago
  Actually I did the same with My wife's Asus, I dd-ed the whole drive, gzipped it and ran Linux for a year. Then I restored it. It worked fine. I guess I won't run into problems as long as the drive is the same drive, or perhaps a bigger one.
- teekert 5y ago
  I think the problem would be the partitions, perhaps try the whole drive end to end next time?
fish45 5y ago
Funny anecdote, I installed Ubuntu on my own laptop to improve my minecraft FPS when I was 9 (~9 years ago). I googled something like "how to get more fps in minecraft" and the first result was a minecraft forum post to which the only response was "install Ubuntu". At the time, Ubuntu had a .exe installer, so I thought it was just like any other program and installed it to my C: drive along with everything else. I think I did have the concept of other OS since I'd used both Windows and MacOS previously, so I figured it out after the reboot. It did increase my minecraft FPS from ~15 to ~30 on average, so I didn't have any complaints. I stuck with that laptop until high school, when I got a new laptop and started dual-booting Windows for gaming and Linux for everything else, which is where I'm at now.
- rambambram 5y ago
  Indeed funny! What happened after you installed the .exe Ubuntu? You clicked the icon and then ..? I'm just past the 'stage' you're in now, I recently deleted my partition running Windows (kept it for GTA5). Only Ubuntu now.
  - vvatermelone 5y ago
    Are you able to play GTAV on linux? Or just given up on the ability to play it? That and a few racing sims are the only things keeping me on windows these days.
    - godshatter 5y ago
      Not the person you're replying to (and I don't play GTAV), but you can look here to see if it works in Steam via Proton: https://www.protondb.com/app/271590 https://www.protondb.com/app/271590 It's rated Gold, and appears to work out of the box for some people, others have had to add an option to the command line that Steams uses to run it, and some people have seen some problems running it. If you do end up going this route and try it, please file a report on protondb letting others know how it went.
    - squarefoot 5y ago
      Apparently GTAV runs quite well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_69huFZSLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_69huFZSLA You may also want to check out PlayOnLinux which eases the creation of sandboxed installations for different Windows software (not just games), in which each one could use its own Wine version, libraries, modules etc. https://www.playonlinux.com/en/ https://www.playonlinux.com/en/
lancepioch 5y ago
> Do you really need Windows? Probably not, unless you are a gamer.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I unfortunately kept all my backups as NTFS and I maintained that for a while because "legacy" and I was lazy. Converting them all is gonna take a while. So I'm sort of waiting until it's inevitable.
- logifail 5y ago
  > Converting them all is gonna take a while What sort of backups? (My experience is that) NTFS filesystems mount just fine on other OSes, particular Linux.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    I have over 2TB's of data. While yes I can read them on linux, it it's always perfect and there are issues regarding permissions on occasion or an issue where it doesn't recognize the directory for some odd reason. No idea if it's a linux issue, the standard ntfs reader I have on my distro, or what. But, I figure if I'm going all out linux, might as well make it difficult to jump back out :)
    - f1refly 5y ago
      2TB is not much at all. Tip from experience: Don't touch your important ntfs data with the linux drivers, instead get an ext/btrfs driver for windows. winbtrfs[1] is stable and works great for that purpose. [1] https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs
      - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        Hey thanks! I'll have to look into this more but would you recommend ext4 or btrfs? I just want something that will last, not necessarily the latest and greatest.
        f1refly 5y ago
        Although I don't feel qualified to answer this, I'd recommend ext4. It just works. They are trying to achieve the one fs to rule them all with btrfs, but I'm not too sure how stable it is at the moment. It had a lot of issues in the past, and if you don't plan to use subvolumes, screenshots etc you're better off using ext4. Fun story: I once had an issue where I couldn't do anything with my btrfs volume because it ran out of metadata space and I couldn't even tell it to allocate more. The solution wsa to grab a usb drive, format it with btrfs, make a volume group so more metadata space would be available to the filesystem, then make it allocate more space on the normal ssd. Everything was fine after removing the flashdrive from the volume group. It was a scary evening.
pradn 5y ago
Windows just works. I can't remember the last time I had a driver issue with wifi or had an issue with new hardware working. Every game targets Windows first, so they all work without any extra work. My computer is a tool, and I don't want to spend any of my free time configuring things, like I have when running Linux in the past. I spent enough of my time at work doing that!
- Zardoz84 5y ago
  Since was the last time that you try using Linux?. Sounds like you try it like 20 years ago. Actually Linux f works out the box
- patrick451 5y ago
  Every time I install windows, I spend easily half a day hunting down drivers. All of this is installed automatically with linux, and especially Ubuntu installs. The last time I installed windows, I got two black strips on either side of the display. No amount of GPU driver shenanigans would fix it. It worked first try on linux.
  - kinjba11 5y ago
    Anecdotal of course, but I've had the opposite experience. When I install Windows, the first thing I do is let Windows Update take care of everything. You could say it's "installed automatically". The only drivers I've needed to install in the past 5 years was Nvidia drivers for graphics cards or the odd printer driver. And downloading these drivers is super easy taking 5 minutes at most - the first search result for "nvidia download drivers" is the correct one. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but every time I've installed Linux something with the drivers always breaks - video playback is choppy, wireless drops randomly, audio breaks, the fingerprint reader doesn't work. Using WSL2 or a VM is much easier when I want Linux.
  - pradn 5y ago
    We're all talking anecdotes, but all I have to do is install the NVIDIA driver updater and I'm good to go.
  - 5y ago
nonameiguess 5y ago
Still haven't found a way to digitally sign a pdf with a smart card on Linux, unfortunately. If anyone knows how, I'd love a tip. Last thing I absolutely can't do except on Windows, and it is required by a lot of DoD processes I have to follow.
- jurgemaister 5y ago
  Perhaps this[1] is a solution? [1]: https://signer.digital/SignerDigitalBrowserExtensions https://signer.digital/SignerDigitalBrowserExtensions

jptech 5y ago

Even without an MS account, when using Microsoft Store with a local account, I won't be surprised if they used some hardware fingerprint such as MAC address to assign a unique ID to that account.

judge2020 5y ago
Wait until you hear about the combination of hardware identifiers they use to validate that your license is only being used on one computer.
Merad 5y ago
I don't know about use of the store in general, but if you use the MS store to buy a Windows license they automatically convert your account and link the license to that account. Source: built a new PC a few weeks ago and naively assumed they'd just give me a product key or ask how I wanted to receive it.
entropy1111 5y ago
They add a unique identifier to EFIVARS. That's why if you install a MS store application without being logged in, completely wipe/replace your disks you can still see the list of previous installed applications in the store.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Don't know why you are downvoted, they do exactly that. Probably since a decade. They connect license and hardware ids.