5 ms·

This is interesting, compared to another current front-page HN post, " I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC" https://news.ycombinator.com/

• criddell 5y ago
  I can see why Microsoft might insist on Windows Home users having a Microsoft account, but I don't get the reason for Windows Pro users also being required to have a Microsoft account.
  • gentleman11 5y ago
    Why should my mom be forced to make a Microsoft account to use her computer?
    • criddell 5y ago
      She should probably be given the option to upgrade to Windows Pro.
    • esclerofilo 5y ago
      Because she won't back up her files, and if she gets ransomware she'll lose them. But if she has a Microsoft account, they'll be on OneDrive. Which she would never have set up if it wasn't for Microsoft's nagging.
      • Tijdreiziger 5y ago
        And why should Microsoft be the one to decide that?
        • esclerofilo 5y ago
          Because (1) no one else can and (2) after a ransomware attack, they get the blame.
          • neodymiumphish 5y ago
            Exactly. Windows Defender comes with Windows for free, and does a pretty good job protecting home users. However, ransomware is still the most prolific cyber threat for home users, and Defender can't do much against it if the malware executes before Defender can stop/detect it. Integrating OneDrive automatically for Photos, Documents, etc, can seriously aide in protecting those important files for end users, since the un-encrypted versions of their files will still be available on OneDrive after a successful attack. What if Defender was only an option for Microsoft account users? Then it'd be "look at these greedy assholes that just want to collect all your data", when really it'd be an effort for them to protect the reputation of Defender by forcing full functionality by default.
            • vel0city 5y ago
              I'll preface by saying I'm glad Windows Defender doesn't do this automatically, but there are security software suites which do provide some protection against cryptoware but at the cost of performance. They tie into the write commands at the OS level and cache the changes while it watches the behavior. If it thinks the actions are probably malicious, it locks out those flagged processes from being able to make any additional file changes and rewinds all the changes those processes have made. I've yet to actually have it work in in actuality (I have never experienced a ransomware attack either professionally or personally) but I've definitely experienced secure delete programs attempt to do a low level overwrite with random data get interrupted by such systems. I once told sdelete.exe to wipe an entire directory. It furiously ran, did a bunch of disk IOPS, halted a minute or two into the process due to a permissions error, and all my files were fine. A second or two later the security software notified me of a cryptolocker infection it prevented and happily showed me the command I had entered moments before. Its no free lunch though. IOPS performance is a little lower and there's more CPU/RAM usage per IOPS when the protection is on.
        • neodymiumphish 5y ago
          To be fair, they aren't (at least not yet). You can still set up a local account. As for why/whether Microsoft should decide that, it's kinda their call. Plenty of other apps/services/devices require an account of some type. (effectively) All require agreement with their terms of service. By your logic, why aren't you irritated that Microsoft requires any type of account at all for Windows (same for any other OS)?
        • f00zz 5y ago
          I've tried to uninstall OneDrive from my wife's computer a few times, but the cursed thing keeps coming back.
  • EricE 5y ago
    You can skip it with Pro. It's easy to overlook, but the option is there. You can also set up a new Windows 10 Pro installation without a network cord plugged in and it dramatically simplifies the setup process skipping the whole MS account dance other than telling you that you can do it if/when you connect the machine to the network later.
    • criddell 5y ago
      I thought Windows 11 was going to insist on a Microsoft account?
      • krylon 5y ago
        I don't think they would do that for the Pro/Enterprise version, because many large companies running domains would not go for that.
  • njovin 5y ago
    With XBox I'm unable to play offline games if Xbox knows it needs an update, even if I have the network connections disconnected. There's no logical reason for this. I was in a situation last year where I had purchased an Xbox with a game that was allegedly playable offline but was unable to play it because the Xbox Live service was down (but somehow the console knew it was lacking an update). In light of this, I don't trust that some future outage of a Microsoft service would prevent me from logging in to or using my own computer, which is totally unacceptable.