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Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account

• saltyoldman 1y ago
  At some point we can use the Konami code to break out of the requirement right?
• vpShane 1y ago
  'We'll never require you to need an online account to log in to your system' Look how that changed. Windows Recall 'We'll never use this in any bad way whatsoever' Sure thing. Windows 10 goes EOL in 8 days, with the EU forcing Microsoft to give their customer bases security patches. Not anywhere else though, and not in the U.S. What was the end goal with that? Move everybody over to Windows 11; on their EOL page it lists places you can donate your old non-working hardware to. Forcing users to do what? Buy new overpriced hardware when what they have is fine? People jumped to Windows 7 out of spite; with Linux Desktop marketshare still slowly, steadily rising over the last 10 months. Windows 7 is EOL and no longer receives security patches, so security wise people are a lot worse off than what was anticipated. Here's the thing, I started up an old iPad last night and the e-mail no longer exists nor can be created, so I can't do a lost password, I can't log in, so I can't install apps, or even format the device without some 'Account Lock' I own this iPad, as in: it's mine. Why should I, and why would I want to put MY device's access and security on the whims of company? They want to own our hardware, and our software. I for one preach Linux Desktop, Manjaro XFCE for me. I think people are sticking with Windows 7 despite it being EOL because games and their software will for the most part not run in to issues linux gaming may be facing. That ain't the way. Your computer. Your choice. No cloud accounts/everything being logged on the desktop that people do, no 'requirements' to utilize the new software, and no 'requirements' to connect people to cloud backup systems to later coerce and push people to buy.
  • brian-armstrong 1y ago
    > People jumped to Windows 7 out of spite; with Linux Desktop marketshare still slowly, steadily rising over the last 10 months. Windows 7 is EOL and no longer receives security patches, so security wise people are a lot worse off than what was anticipated. If you saw the same report of that, it turned out to be a UA anomaly. Most likely very few people actually went back to Win 7, which now has quite bad compatibility with newer hardware and software.
  • pessimizer 1y ago
    Last time I saw stats Linux desktop marketshare, somebody said it was up to 6%. That's astonishing. Imagine it getting to 15-20%. Imagine that many people owning their own computers again. Then all that's left is keeping IBM/Redhat's grubby hands off it.
    • typpilol 1y ago
      I'm guessing that's 6% increase in users not 6% market share
    • leoapagano 1y ago
      > Last time I saw stats Linux desktop marketshare, somebody said it was up to 6%. That's astonishing. I wouldn't get too excited about that. That might just be because people are moving off of desktops entirely and now only own mobile devices, a market where Linux may as well not exist (excluding Android). The number goes up, because at large, the portion of people who run Linux desktops are less likely to pivot to using only a mobile phone as they tend to be hobbyists/enthusiasts.
      • A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, personally it is astonishing to me that is only 6%. I do buy the corporates explanation. I even buy the gaming explanation ( despite only heavily online games being 'better' on Windows -- from developer's perspective ). But everyone else? I can only assume it has to do with how little personal computing is done today not on smartphones.
  • richardfey 1y ago
    > with Linux Desktop marketshare still slowly, steadily rising over the last 10 months. Where do you get these figures from? Is there a sensible % increase? I've been using Linux desktop for a decade now and I am certain it still used by few, and nothing has changed recently. Or you're telling me 2026 is the year of the Linux desktop?
    • typpilol 1y ago
      2025 is surly the year of Linux desktop this time!
    • fao_ 1y ago
      Probably not 2026, but sure, by 2030. A fair chunk of the younger generation do give a shit about privacy (see also: torrenting on the rise again), Linux is mostly unattended with respect to configuring things these days, and things like "sound" and "games" are for the most part a thing of the past outside of 4 or 5 specific games that require kernel-level anticheat.
      • rolph 1y ago
        yes torrenting is on the rise, and a lot more people seem to be aware of private torrents.
    • potwinkle 1y ago
      The year of the Linux Desktop was like 3 years ago with Proton becoming good and the kernel getting a ton of improvements.
  • protocolture 1y ago
    >on their EOL page it lists places you can donate your old non-working hardware to. Forcing users to do what? Buy new overpriced hardware when what they have is fine? Devils advocate. Everyone really should be on Secure Boot / Bitlocker / TPM2.0 in the Windows space. Windows 11 is really there as a checkpoint to force people to upgrade to more secure hardware. If you dont care about security, you probably dont care about security updates, you can remain with Windows 10. Thats not to say that they went about this in a pro consumer way. Its been bungled. But specifically on the point of hardware upgrades, for your average windows user the hardware isnt really "fine" as you put it. >Here's the thing, I started up an old iPad last night and the e-mail no longer exists nor can be created, so I can't do a lost password, I can't log in, so I can't install apps, or even format the device without some 'Account Lock' On the apple front, they get 10x the amount of flak for "enabling" stolen hardware to be reformatted and reused, than they get for bricking people who lose access to an account. Recovery is expendable in Apple town. Recovery of iCloud accounts enabled identity theft and personal photos of celebs to be released. Recovery of hardware enables theft. Its a losing proposition. >That ain't the way. Your computer. Your choice. We really need a hardware path without conflicting priorities.
    • Lammy 1y ago
      > If you dont care about security Microsoft's idea of Security is security from me, not security for me. They use this overloaded language because it's so hard to argue against. It's a thought-terminating cliché. Oh you must not care about being secure huh???
      • protocolture 1y ago
        Microsofts idea of security is security from being blamed for large scale breaches. I dont think they think about you or me at all tbh. My point was, if you dont care about Secure Boot / Bitlocker / TPM2.0, then you probably dont also care about security updates. Not whatever insult you thought I was making. If your thoughts were terminated, that was entirely self inflicted.
        • 1y ago
  • badc0ffee 1y ago
    > Here's the thing, I started up an old iPad last night and the e-mail no longer exists nor can be created, so I can't do a lost password, I can't log in, so I can't install apps, or even format the device without some 'Account Lock' If it has a passcode and you remember the passcode, you should still be able to wipe the device with Apple Configurator? If the situation is that you don't have a passcode, but you do have an iCloud account where you don't remember the password and can't access the email address, and either don't have access to the recovery phone number or never specified one, then yeah. You might need to find your receipt and bring it to an Apple store to be reset.
    • throwaway290 1y ago
      Just contacting Apple support could maybe solve this.
  • astafrig 1y ago
    > I own this iPad, as in: it's mine. Why should I, and why would I want to put MY device's access and security on the whims of company? Great question! You did configure it that way, so it might be worth asking yourself.
    • john01dav 1y ago
      It is impossible to configure recent ipads in any other way. There are no established 3rd party OSes that you can install, even with great effort. IOS does not respect user freedom. As an example, see the restrictions on running code that Apple didn't approve of (directly, or, in the EU, indirectly).
      • astafrig 1y ago
        Cool, great. That’s got nothing to do with Activation Lock.
  • AJ007 1y ago
    This should have been the EU approach to Apple. Instead we got third party "App Stores" to install software Apple still approves and controls. It could have been a three paragraph law.
    • stephen_g 1y ago
      I (quite honestly, not being snarky) think the whole reason for that was the EC were trying to target Apple (and some other US tech companies) while pretending to not specifically target them, and in this case wanted Apple to do certain specific actions but couldn't be that prescriptive for the aforementioned reasons, so Apple was able to take advantage of that wiggle-room to take a different tack. If they'd just been upfront that they were directly targeting a few US companies and prescribed exactly what to do, then the DMA wouldn't be a mess that made some things worse, and they could have made Apple to do what they wanted.
• mindslight 1y ago
  Is there a worry that torrent packagers won't be able to work around these, or what's the actual concern here? I mean if you're using Windows for anything beyond a VM binary compatibility layer for some software you must use, aren't you kind of asking to be abused at this point?
  • lax4ever 1y ago
    If you are getting your OS from some third party torrent packager you are doing it wrong. There are far easier ways to get around this without trusting that some mysterious third party hasn't embedded some malware in their custom Windows deployment.
    • lucb1e 1y ago
      With Microsoft allegedly trying to close down all those ways, it sure sounds like OS modification (or not using Windows) is the reasonable endgame here? I'm not sure how this comment, saying to not use modified OSes but use the "far easier ways", fits with the submitted article. Not everyone has the skills to modify the compiled code files that make Windows require a Microsoft account If it's so easy, which are these ways, then? Do you think they'll remain available indefinitely? Not that I don't underwrite the risks involved in getting your OS from untrusted or unreputable sources
      • lax4ever 1y ago
        The simplest remaining way that I am aware of is actually an autounattend file. This is a Microsoft supplied method that has been around for a long time and something that I truly believe will stick around untouched because it is pretty much a requirement of any enterprise Windows deployment. Not only does it allow you to create a local admin account, but you can also skip all the other setup screens that you want by pre-supplying values. Throw this file into your Windows boot media, do a fresh install (which you should be doing when you get a new machine regardless), and away you go. I use this both personally and my work environment. Not only are you then not relying on modifying OS ISO's or compilations, but an XML file is relatively easy to verify that only the settings you have set are the ones being input into the system if you utilize a third party tool like the one available at schneegeas.de
• mapontosevenths 1y ago
  This is anti-consumer.
  • pndy 1y ago
    And yet still happens along with rest of dark patterns, data hoarding. Somehow no consumer protecting organizations were interested in this aspect of Microsoft practices.
• Havoc 1y ago
  Had to edit a .docx today to refresh my CV today...and realised oh...I don't have any more windows machines on hand anymore. Interesting how smoothly that faded away psychologically after 20+ years of windows use without me even overtly noticing. Think MS is in for a rough ride on Windows. Short of corporate world - Excel/Sharpoint/AD - there is just no moat. Browsers work fine on all platforms, dev work is better on linux anyway and gaming on linux is rapidly becoming usable. And mac side is obviously competitive on various fronts too.
  • typpilol 1y ago
    They've been saying this for years now. The problem is there's no real alternative. Your grandma is not going to use Linux. So the choice is between windows and mac.. and the truth is a lot of apps people use are windows only. I don't see windows losing desktop share anytime soon.
    • 0xTJ 1y ago
      The average grandparent isn't installing an OS, they're using whatever comes on the device. If you had Ubuntu pre-installed and automatically updating, there isn't going to be that much of a difference for how many less-tech-savy people use the computer. Microsoft has a strong cycle of "applications run on Windows" -> "device vendors choose to bundle Windows" -> "people use applications on Windows", but that has been eroded, in part thanks to Wine and the work put in by people at Valve. If someone who uses their computer to browse the web and check the email picked up a laptop pre-installed with Ubuntu, they'd likely be perfectly fine with it.
      • fuzzfactor 1y ago
        >a strong cycle of "applications run on Windows" -> "device vendors choose to bundle Windows" -> "people use applications on Windows", >but that has been eroded, in part thanks to Wine and the work put in by people at Valve. Eroded even more so by the user-hostile approach of Microsoft itself. Exactly with things like being a complete failure to recognize a strong valid need for general users to only opt-in to an account according to their own personal needs alone. Not with Microsoft or Google or anybody else known to be a source of unwanted ads or anti-professional annoyances. Why abandon a remaining security element that can protect against PII compromise like no other? It's just sad to lose an essential feature that has always been built-in to Windows since the beginning, which helped make Windows into a far better business machine than would have been otherwise possible. And why now when security is more important than ever?
• lax4ever 1y ago
  Autounattend files are about to become far more popular... And on that note, have to recommend this tool for them: https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/
  • fao_ 1y ago
    All the lamentations of having to tinker with Linux to get it to work properly are rapidly approaching a nuclear level irony bomb...
    • lax4ever 1y ago
      I understand the desire to get out from under the MS umbrella, as there are definitely legitimate gripes. But I also see the irony that if you have the technical ability to install a Linux distro, you definitely have the technical ability to use an autounattend XML.
      • rolph 1y ago
        you would also be perceptive enough to realise, you are resisting an openly hostile actor, and the apron strings should be cut.
        • lax4ever 1y ago
          I don't know about openly hostile. Definitely making moves that the user base openly disagree with and think are, at best, very bad decisions, but I don't think they have crossed the "hostile" line. And MS is not alone with those kinds of decisions. Apple may not "force" you to use an iCloud account for their devices, but they sure push it hard. As far as Linux communities go, Red Hat, Arch, Cisco, and even Ubuntu have also done their fair share of "bad decisions".
          • bitmasher9 1y ago
            Microsoft is definitely user hostile, and has been for a very long time.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• marak830 1y ago
  I am getting so tired of this MS push to have me use their systems. I already purchased windows, if I wanted to use their other stuff - I would buy it. Seriously considering the move to Linux - I've heard it's getting better, but it would cost me a bit of time getting used to it. The pain is really starting to seem like a lower cost every day.
  • Modified3019 1y ago
    These days I find Linux and windows have a roughly equal amount of issues to deal with, and because I have decades of experience learning how to work through those issues, they are equally painful so I can happily choose Linux over windows. What makes Linux especially painful to windows users is they basically need to relearn how to solve the same sort of problems they’ve forgotten they’ve been solving all the time in windows, but in Linux. Which makes the effort novel and thus especially noticeable. Basically it takes accepting one is going to get smacked with fractal side quests of searching how to fix problems for a bit, but it does get better fairly quickly.
    • marak830 1y ago
      That's what I have been hearing. My biggest issue is, unlike most of you guys, I'm self taught and only program when I need to (so mostly c#, python, ruby on rails). C# isn't going to be much use to me on Linux. But as long as I can continue my local hosted llm and playing around with that, and my son can play his games, I'll probably bite the bullet in a few weeks.
      • mythz 1y ago
        > C# isn't going to be much use to me on Linux. FYI I'm a C# dev and .NET works flawlessly on Linux (Fedora). Since I only used Rider/VS Code for my .NET Apps on Windows it works as just as good on Linux, albeit even better given access to better command-line tooling. I don't run any legacy .NET Framework Apps on Linux (which require Mono) but I'm still able to build our software for all our supported platforms: .NET Framework v4.7.2, .NET Standard 2.0, .NET 6.0, .NET 8.0 both locally and on our Ubuntu GitHub Actions Runner.
• nobodyandproud 1y ago
  Windows for work. Linux and Mac at home. The kids only get chromebook and Macs.
  • john01dav 1y ago
    I use Linux at work and at home. I give Linux running Cinnamon to non-technical family members. I would not give a Chromebook. They're extremely locked down, and I don't want such things to have market share since that forces others to engage with such locked down nonsense.
  • lentil_soup 1y ago
    Isn't Mac just as terrible? I use Windows and Mac for work and find both a terrible experience
    • OCTAGRAM 1y ago
      Mavericks forever
• barrkel 1y ago
  I've switched to Linux. It's easier at this point. It's less slick, but I absolutely do not trust MS any more.
• atulvi 1y ago
  Switched to Linux for gaming. Getting more FPS on Linux too.
• jacquesm 1y ago
  At this point if you are still willingly part of the MS ecosystem I'd say that's a case of Stockholm Syndrome. At the time of the SCO lawsuit I decided enough is enough and I haven't looked back. Software development is actually easier on Linux, there are good enough alternatives for most applications so unless your job demands that you use a particular package you might as well bite the bullet. Microsoft will never change its ways, no matter how much windowdressing they use underneath it is the same evil empire that it always was.
  • wilsonnb3 1y ago
    shrug life as a developer in Microsoft-land is pretty nice these days. I quite like Azure Functions and Azure SQL Server, C# is great, Visual Studio is kind of slow but better than anything not made by JetBrains. Really my only complaint is the lack of a nice, modern desktop UI framework but you can’t win them all.
    • jacquesm 1y ago
      I don't care about convenience, I care about the ethics of the companies that I work with. Convenience is what got us in this mess in the first place, it certainly isn't going to get us out of it. And if you don't want to implicitly support Microsoft Windows V 267 (now with more advertising, DNA samples for access and a free psych evaluation), then 11 is as good a time to break with them as any.
• throwaway106382 1y ago
  Bit the bullet and deleted the Windows partition from my Fedora dual boot. Good riddance. Will never give Microsoft another dime as long as I live
• ahmeni 1y ago
  MS owes people a working basic Windows ecosystem. We need to find the Middle Manager Driven Development that's responsible for this nonsense and put an end to it.
  • tracerbulletx 1y ago
    You think a shift like this is coming from middle management? Feels like an executive driven strategy shift towards recurring revenue, subscriptions, advertising, data collection, app stores, and away from the old OS licensing business model to me.
    • ahmeni 1y ago
      middle management driven development is the mindset, not the people. it is the core of number go up at all cost
      • tracerbulletx 1y ago
        I don't really agree with that. The infinite growth mindset is just capitalism and the current market realities being executed by the board and the C-Suite. Dysfunctional middle management is motivated more by protecting their job, kingdom building, and promotions.
• nathan_compton 1y ago
  I am glad I have habituated myself to the pains of using Linux on the Desktop for the last 20 years.
• rolph 1y ago
  ive had two people ask me today, for "that linux thing"; "the one that lets you use your computer for free" that is visceraly hilarious.
• jazzyjackson 1y ago
  Are we sure this is the case for all Win11 builds? Or does this change only apply to users in the insiders program on the Dev channel (I presume you just be logged in with your Microsoft account to configure a machine with an insider build of Windows) I recently was able to purchase a Win11 pro license from Newegg to upgrade a Win11 home machine without creating a MS account, that's probably an easier hole to patch if they truly want to prevent offline use entirely.
• MaximilianEmel 1y ago
  Search for "Local-only commands removal" on the page for the relevant section: Local-only commands removal: We are removing known mechanisms for creating a local account in the Windows Setup experience (OOBE). While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use. Users will need to complete OOBE with internet and a Microsoft account, to ensure device is setup correctly.
  • packetlost 1y ago
    The requiring internet part is particularly egregious, wow.
    • major505 1y ago
      Because it seems that microsoft could not shitify windows experience anymore. I like windows, Its a great system specially for being productive, but the godamn start menu using react and edge and the online requirements are a pain in the ass. Sometimes it just hangs while you click the windows key. All I want is to open notepad++...
      • Marsymars 1y ago
        I've found the start menu is perfectly responsive if you disable its internet results.
        • AlexandrB 1y ago
          This is the story of Windows since 7 (and even earlier if you used the crappified Windows typically included with hardware): "The default experience is dogshit, but with enough work you can fix it." With every release the work required to make Windows bearable increases.
          • major505 1y ago
• neilv 1y ago
  I only need Microsoft to run airgapped TurboTax, which for 2025 will require Windows 11. Maybe it's time to switch tax return software.
  • billfor 1y ago
    FreeTaxUSA is great and web based.
    • neilv 1y ago
      Web-based isn't airgapped? Working in tech, I know what absolute slimeballs pretty much any tech company is about privacy and user data today.
      • estimator7292 1y ago
        So out of all options you use turbo tax?
        • neilv 1y ago
          Airgapped thus far. If that's not possible for 2025 tax year, I'll have to look at other options. (Maybe some saintly patriots will get the canceled IRS project into viable self-hosted PDF-generating form in time.)
      • captainregex 1y ago
        ahhh yes the noted privacy respect of…checks notes…Intuit
  • mindslight 1y ago
    I know your stance on piracy. But I will bet that whatever check for Windows 11 they add will be completely superfluous, and that the crack for TT2025 will patch it right out. Just sayin'.
• browningstreet 1y ago
  Two weeks ago, after Microsoft reset my default apps twice in a week, I bought an external drive, backed up all my stuff and wiped Windows. I’ve got Linux all over the place, in many cloud envs, and on older hardware. But I finally committed to it on my big, meaty, main desktop. The one I use for coding and banking and accounting. I’m running a Linux distro full-time. I had to hack a few minor hardware things. Nothing ChatGPT couldn’t solve. I’ll never do Microsoft again. I will prob add Apple MacBooks to my life, but my main grunt machine is likely to stay Linux. I’m fully vested. I know I’ll never engage with Microsoft shenanigans in my home environment ever again.
  • mixmastamyk 1y ago
    That's an interesting point. To what extent does AI support make Linux on the desktop more viable? Reminds me of a discussion recently that said something similar, that developing in Rust is easier now that you can have another machine do battle with the borrow checker, haha. To extend, maybe someone could build a "SysAd AI" distribution that administers itself given natural language directions? Let me know if anyone wants to invest. ;-)
    • gessha 1y ago
      LLMs have probably trawled through ArchWiki+StackOverflow and can enough content to help you debug your system. That plus a few “are you sure” responses to LLM hallucinations have gotten me far.
      • SoftTalker 1y ago
        So much Linux advice on the web is woefully outdated. Like answers for Ubuntu 8 still sometimes come up high in my search results. True that some things are still the same, but not many, especially pre-systemd.
        • papichulo2023 1y ago
          I write in the prompt the distro and its version and so far no much problem with old answers. If anything, it made me realise that some knowledge I had is outdated.
• Simulacra 1y ago
  I hate to say it, but the vast majority of users are going to just adapt and keep going. Probably north of 70% of computer users see these and just automatically accept, sign up, all of that. It's not that they don't care, they just don't understand.
  • hedora 1y ago
    Well, Windows desktop/laptop market share is down to 70.2%, so it’s possible you’re correct. In other news, Linux is over 5 now.
  • npteljes 1y ago
    And of the rest of the 30%, 29+% is going to grumble, and then accept and sign up anyways. MS knows their power well.
• ferguess_k 1y ago
  I wonder which teams are working on these features. I'd like to meet with them in person. There are a lot to discuss.
  • maltalex 1y ago
    They probably know exactly what your thoughts are about this change.
    • zuminator 1y ago
      I'm more curious about what their thoughts are. They have to know what the community thinks about these moves. What do they intend to accomplish? I'd like to hear the roadmap from the lion's mouth, so to speak, if they have some kind of justification that would make sense to the skeptical observer.
      • luke727 1y ago
        The justification is money. Microsoft doesn't make any money off of offline accounts.
        • kbolino 1y ago
          They used to get money from selling products, like Windows. That we are in this situation where they choose to give the OS away for free but then have to scramble to find money in obnoxious ways afterward is bizarre to me. It's not like they started this process with zero market share.
          • Krssst 1y ago
            They have a total monopoly on OSes able to run Windows software; this is their strong point: write some random software in 1996, still works today. As a result they can quadruple-dip by having users pay for the OS, show them ads, inflict them unwanted products, and (maybe? if they don't now they surely could without repercussions) sell their data. This is what monopolies do. The versions that are respectful of users are gated behind "being a company" requirement. (exception of Windows Server but it's kinda messy to setup for gaming. Though it kinda shows that when they have actual competition on a market they do nice things)
• jrnng 1y ago
  Time for me to go all in on Linux. Ubuntu has been my daily driver on dual boot with windows since MS started using dark patterns to opt in to OneDrive. My next build will be solo boot! My work machine is a Mac though I don't get any say in that.
  • lanfeust6 1y ago
    I recently tried out Kubuntu and am pleased. It's as Windows-like as I want it to be. The extra work to deal with drivers so far has been minor.
  • acidburnNSA 1y ago
    Good choice! I've been solo boot Linux for years and absolutely love it.
  • MathMonkeyMan 1y ago
    I just upgraded my recently bought X1 Carbon Gen 12 from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. And now the sound stutters occasionally :( My guess is it's something with Pipewire replacing PulseAudio, where some apps now use a PulseAudio shim on top of Pipewire. Or maybe drivers I dunno. But the fingerprint scanner works. The fingerprint scanner works! Everything else has been fine.
    • popopo73 1y ago
      Are you using FDE? Check your caching settings.
• billfor 1y ago
  How will this work for government clients that need a secure environment?
  • doubled112 1y ago
    They will likely log into a domain. If they need something offline/air gapped, I'm not sure either. LTSC is another option.
  • CaptainBanger 1y ago
    [dead]
  • john01dav 1y ago
    They will probably charge extra for it. I asked a public school IT person how he was handling FERPA with the new privacy violations on windows 10, and the answer was paying exorbitant fees.
  • estimator7292 1y ago
    There's actually a group policy to disable Microsoft accounts. No idea how well it works, but it's there
  • cyberax 1y ago
    The LTSC edition is unaffected. You _can_ buy it, but it's a bit of a quest. You need to register as a company and buy at least five Windows licenses (you don't have to use them), and after that you can get a license for an LTSC version. It works out to about $700, if you want to go down this route.
    • xeonmc 1y ago
      mas
• exabrial 1y ago
  Why is _anyone_ still using Windows?
  • phainopepla2 1y ago
    Because my job makes me
    • vanc_cefepime 1y ago
      Same. But at home, I have a desktop (Linux Mint), a NUC server (Proxmox w various VMs/containers) and a MacBook Air M2/iPad that wife/kids use. I am starting to see them use the Linux Mint desktop more and more (main web browsing, word processing, etc) since I dropped Windows about 4 years ago. I did maintain a separate Win10 install for games but SteamDeck (and Win10 becoming EOL) made that obsolete but I am starting to get my feet wet in Linux gaming with my nvidia GPU but haven't really tried all the distros to pick one yet. Is this the year of the Linux desktop? Unlikely, but I've started to donate more regularly to the Linux Mint team and same with any OSS that helps me maintain our privacy which I suspect is driving more and more to look into options instead of accepting the status quo.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • alexchantavy 1y ago
    Can't make a custom gaming rig with Mac. Linux gaming isn't quite there yet too.
    • sersi 1y ago
      At this point, there are very few games where I've personally had to switch back to windows. I don't play online though so not impacted by Anti-cheat systems
      • 49531 1y ago
        Yeah it really comes down to online gameplay. The _only_ thing keeping me in microsoft's orbit is online gaming.
• leodip 1y ago
  Proud Linux user here.
• windows2020 1y ago
  Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand. My first experience with Windows 11 was figuring out some dumb workaround to use a local account. When I think back to Windows 7, the good feeling isn't nostalgia. It was the last user-focused Windows. Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs. Or better yet, maybe Microsoft will realize very important parts of Windows are going downhill and remember what made Windows great.
  • rowanG077 1y ago
    > Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs. Nothing as user focused as linux, and it's mostly compatible with windows programs with wine. Important to note though that user focused is not the same thing as easy to use.
    • r00t- 1y ago
      I'm a linux fan but calling linux user-focused is insane.
      • john01dav 1y ago
        It's user-focused in the sense that the user's goals drive the design. The good non-profit distributions, such as Debian and Arch, would never even try to require or push an online account, since that is contrary to the user's interests.
        • lostmsu 1y ago
          I think in Linux developers drive the design more than users.
          • estimator7292 1y ago
            Linux developers are the primary users of Linux if you think about it
• drnick1 1y ago
  Laughing in Arch Linux.
  • drnick1 1y ago
    Seriously, though, now that Win10 is being phased out, it’s time for people to wake up and join us in the free world. M$ wants you to throw away your hardware and buy a new computer with Win11. Give them the middle finger, format and install Linux instead.
    • ragequittah 1y ago
      If you like playing video games with your friends and working in a normal job you'll likely be using Windows 90% of the time even if you loathe it.
      • estimator7292 1y ago
        You're right. Wow, what a unique and novel opinion that no linux user has ever heard before. You know what, you've changed my mind, I'm installing windows now
        • hu3 1y ago
          It's just the reality. No one is asking you to do anything.
      • drnick1 1y ago
        Most games run on Linux nowadays thanks to Proton. The blame for the ones that do not squarely falls on publishers like EA who despise the freedom of Linux. They would rather infect Windows computers with rootkits that do little against cheating than allow the community to run their own servers.
• zb3 1y ago
  Thanks Microsoft! Without your help I'd inadvertently skip some critical setup screens and potentially exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use and that would be a huge disaster. You literally saved my device!
• Fischgericht 1y ago
  I do remember to have read a couple of years ago that the Windows Ui team got replaced and now only consists of Mac users, never having used Windows themselves. If that is true, it's now wonder that they do not understand all the value that Windows NT has brought, why having a standard on menu structure, a standard for all UI controls etc made sense. And to understand that while Apple's mission is to provide a walled garden, Windows has been and is used in a million different scenarios. Taking away options will ALWAYS hit some of your customers. And there are a gigantic amount of applications where you want local system accounts only. Yes, Dear Microsoft, computers without an Internet connection do exist and are a common thing. For us it's Win10 IoT LTSC so we have updates for a couple of more years, and by then hopefully the last remaining software and hardware we have will be usable with Linux.
  • wmf 1y ago
    I think this change (and everything in Windows 11) is being driven by the MS Account PM watching telemetry and making number go up.
    • Fischgericht 1y ago
      Not sure. If they would actively read that telemetry data they would notice that the market share of Win11 due to their actions is shrinking, not rising. But maybe they are holding the telemetry graphs upside down? ;) And, obviously, a Windows system not connected to the Internet will not give you Telemetry, so this part of your customer base is invisible to you. As a PM, you would have to actually talk with your actual customers to learn about it. Or they could have just done a survey where customers can vote on what they want. I assume that "Half of the OS settings dialogues now apply changes the moment you klick a checkbox, without a OK / Cancel button; and the other half of the OS allows you to review your changes and revert them in one go if you want." It's just said seeing this great NT system getting crippled and ruined by actively making it harder to use and limiting choices.
      • hhh 1y ago
        The W11 market share isn't shrinking though. A few statistics tracking of websites shows that, but there are plenty of reasons that would go down for w11. Nobody (<0.05%) are buying machines and installing W10.
• da_chicken 1y ago
  They've been marching towards this since Windows 8. Sysadmins have said this was coming since then. As soon as they added Microsoft account login integration this is what we all knew they were going to do.
• ryandrake 1y ago
  Surely, at the lowest level, there needs to be some kind of a local account. I would imagine ripping out the very concept of a local account to be totally infeasible. As long as that's true, I'd expect there to be a way to create one, even if that way ultimately no longer comes from Microsoft.
  • pjerem 1y ago
    And what’s your point ? Surely the users can continue to be treated like that ? Continuing to use an operating system, the only software that have full control over your digital life, from a company that have so much disrespect for their users and that is actively hostile against your choices, at one point that’s Stockholm Syndrome.
  • Marsymars 1y ago
    AFAIK you can easily create a local account after initial setup and use that for whatever you want. As you allude to, there's a whole bunch of Windows functionality that relies on (or allows) local accounts.
    • jmkni 1y ago
      Yeah this is how I did it the last time I setup a Windows machine, I set it up with my Microsoft account initially, created a new local account which was admin, logged in as that and then deleted the Microsoft account. I'm glad I barely have to touch Windows anymore, it really has gone to shit
• waterheater 1y ago
  This is a bad idea. Now, with that established... Microsoft has many intelligent people who work there and certainly do many risk vs. reward calculations for each modification to Windows. From Microsoft's perspective, they have much more control over the OS when everyone's linked to a cloud account. I morally disagree with that approach, but the security issues with Windows come from unpatched systems. They tried to win over software developers by creating WSL, but the privacy- and security-minded software developers never really bit. Also, consider that Microsoft's future is obviously pivoted toward cloud infrastructure. Yes, they smartly have other ventures, but all those ventures will rely on Microsoft cloud infrastructure in some way. Server farms are a much better business model, from Microsoft's perpective, especially because it pulls Microsoft into the domains of true wealth: land acquisition, energy production, and data mining.
• jcalvinowens 1y ago
  With Proton in Steam, my last need for windows is gone, couldn't have happened soon enough.
• 9cb14c1ec0 1y ago
  Hey Microsoft, are you trying to force me to NOT use Windows? Because that is what this feels like.
  • npteljes 1y ago
    I think we can safely conclude that they decided to not care about this.
• fortran77 1y ago
  Can you use a Macintosh without an Apple account? Sort of, but with similar limitations: The App Store, iCloud syncing, iMessage, FaceTime, and other Apple online services are unavailable unless an Apple ID is used. What's the difference here?
  • estimator7292 1y ago
    Fewer people use Macs and those that do are disproportionately more likely to think privacy and freedom are unimportant
  • seshagiric 1y ago
    IIRC: What you can do: 1. At setup time, you are not forced to provide any apple ID. 2. You can login to your notebook without needing Apple ID 3. Install apps directly (i.e not from app store) What you cannot 1. Install apps from App Store 2. Get Apple care etc.
  • Marsymars 1y ago
    > Sort of, but with similar limitations: The App Store, iCloud syncing, iMessage, FaceTime, and other Apple online services are unavailable unless an Apple ID is used. And you get an impossible-to-remove notification from the Settings app.
  • galad87 1y ago
    The difference is that you need a Microsoft account to login in your computer. On macOS an Apple account is require for some services, not to manage the computer user login.
• codedokode 1y ago
  Nice. Make an online account so that your data are uploaded to a different country, and they can ban you from your own computer at any moment for any reason or without one (for example, President woke up in a bad mood). I am surprised that somebody agrees to that terms.
• billfor 1y ago
  All I need is to (easily) enable hibernate to work on Linux when booted with secure-boot, and to be able to set the scroll speed of my touchpad!
• jasoneckert 1y ago
  Even though the article says that Microsoft removed the “bypassnro” workaround earlier this year, I just used it earlier this evening to set up a new Win11 PC for a neighbour successfully (she didn't have a Microsoft account on her previous Win10 laptop, and wanted it the same way). At the part of the initial setup where it asks to connect to a network, press Shift + F10 to open the Command Prompt. Then, type oobe\bypassnro and press Enter. The system will reboot and start the initial setup again in a non-network mode that allows you to create a local user account.
  • EvanAnderson 1y ago
    The new HP PCs I've deployed recently did not have current Windows 11 builds installed. I tend to think OEMs are being slow to update their master images.
  • mwpmaybe 1y ago
    I did the "start ms-cxh:localonly" trick yesterday on a fresh install of Windows 11 25H2 and it worked fine, so...?
  • celeritascelery 1y ago
    I have been holding off upgrading to windows 11, but it sounds like I should do it before I lose the ability to upgrade without an account.
  • sunaookami 1y ago
    This only affects the Dev Channel for now, Insider Preview Build 26220.6772. It needs this new ISO of course.
• sleepyguy 1y ago
  Rufus and or Massgrave. It's all you need.
  • mapontosevenths 1y ago
    Rufus relies in the bypassNRO trick. It just does it via a registry key.
    • sleepyguy 1y ago
      It still worked a couple of days ago.
      • mapontosevenths 1y ago
        Weird. Microsoft's patch must not have broken the same method when applied by registry. Good to know! Thanks!
• tamrix 1y ago
  I wish people had this same enthusiasm for ios and andriod.
• nacozarina 1y ago
  good, the more they drive off Windows the better
• aceazzameen 1y ago
  And here I am leaning towards upgrading my Windows 10 local account PC to Windows 11. I guess MS is making it easy for me on that decision. They can get bent.
• dartharva 1y ago
  So many threads but all missing the point. Windows is not a consumer brand - at least anymore, if it ever was. It is predominantly a business product for enterprises. And their current service model to their clients requires interoperability with cloud services and user profiling for easy authentication and telemetry, which is what they are getting by enforcing Microsoft accounts. That is why there is no contradiction in their POV with this. Does it suck for you retail "Home" users? Yes, but you were never the target customer base; at best you are a marketing platform. There is a reason why Microsoft has been giving away the product virtually for free has been turning a blind eye to its piracy (heck, MS's own Github hosts multiple cracking tools for it) when it comes to retail customers. They have abandoned you as a serious market segment. Switch to Linux.
• presto8 1y ago
  Discovered Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC edition recently. It's great! It is supposed to get security updates through 2032. It doesn't have Cortana, OneDrive, CoPilot, Edge, etc. (Which is a good thing IMO.) Nor does it require a cloud account to use.
  • SeanAnderson 1y ago
    Are there any limitations with this to be aware of? Are Hypervisor/Docker/WSL2 all supported? I'm trying to decide if I want to transition my work computer to Linux or Windows 10 LTSC. Most of my day is spent working inside of WSL2. So, it kind of seems like I should just get on with using Linux native, but several decades of sunken cost have kept me on Windows. I don't think I have a desire to 'upgrade' to Windows 11 and Windows 10 Pro is just about EOL.
    • trolan 1y ago
      The only mid level hurdle you'll encounter is no Microsoft store. It was only an issue for me when gaming, but steam was fully supported. Same for Win 11 LTSC.
      • winkelmann 1y ago
        Not sure if this still works, but you used to be able to run "wsreset.exe -i" to install the Microsoft Store. The command kicks off the process in the background, so there's no progress indicator, but the Store app just appeared after a few minutes.
      • xvv 1y ago
        I am on an LTSC install. Installing the Microsoft store is as easy as typing `wsreset -i` into an admin powershell.
    • nwellinghoff 1y ago
      Wsl2 features like nested virtualization only work in the win11 version. The ltsc releases seem like the only viable option at this point.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• eadmund 1y ago
  If customers keep trying to do something … let them do it? Charge them to do it? It’s crazy to me: folks quite clearly want to run Windows 11 without an account. What is it worth to Microsoft let someone do that? $12? $144? $1,728?
  • CamperBob2 1y ago
    The problem is, the more you're willing to pay, the more you're worth to them. (Which is also why so many services don't let you pay to get rid of ads.)
  • avhception 1y ago
    That's a bit like asking to get a "smart" TV without the spyware / adware. Sure, you could pay more! But they can also just take both your money and that other money. What are you gonna do, buy a non-"smart" TV? :)
    • mschuster91 1y ago
      > What are you gonna do, buy a non-"smart" TV? :) These exist and are called "digital signage" - usually these things got far brighter and more durable panels, downside is they usually hover around 2x the price of an ad delivery device. Plug in your old Chromecast 4k or Apple TV, that's it.
    • maples37 1y ago
      I recently bought a Samsung television, which came with a bunch of the smart nonsense. During the whole setup process I was thinking "I have made a mistake, I need to return this ASAP" but forced myself to continue clicking "no" through the setup screens. After about 5 minutes of setting up (never once connected to Internet), it's pretty much exactly what I wanted: a display for broadcast TV and for HDMI inputs. A pretty good one, too. The only "tricky" part was getting it to remember the last channel/input at power-on instead of going to it's "home" screen, but that was just a setting in a menu somewhere, not particularly hard to find (though I'm the kind of person that does a depth-first-search through the entire menu tree just to see what all is there). I think the key is never letting it get a taste of internet. No internet, no ads :) The internet-related things I do want to watch (like youtube, etc) are easily accomplished through the Linux PC I have connected.
• ronbenton 1y ago
  Has any positive news come out of Microsoft recently? Copilot is junk, entra ID gets hacked constantly, employees resigning in protest. Yet, the stock skyrockets
• hiisukun 1y ago
  I view this a little like those Nigerian prince email scams. True or not, once upon a time I heard that they deliberately did not fix the obvious spelling and grammatical errors in the scam emails -- they acted as an excellent first pass filter to exclude scam effort against targets who wouldn't fall for it anyway. When Microsoft allows local accounts via more complicated loopholes, or activation via massgrave, or the removal of bloat/ad components via scripts or cmdline processes -- they lose little. But what they can gain by having an account for all the 'regular' users is a share of that giant ad revenue pie mostly dominated by google (and more recently a few other companies) in the last 20 years. And if you bypass those processes anyway? Probably worth being filtered out to Microsoft: you likely install an ad blocker later, change your search engine, browser, et al. Knowing what their users do, being their search gateway, their default AI system (eventually..) and generally having an eye on their whole user experience gives Microsoft a formidable profit line in the future. And maybe the present too, I don't know. It is a distasteful feeling to have installed windows 95 (or win7 or whatever your favourite flavour) and then try and install windows 11. But for the majority of their customer base (corporate and residential) this isn't relevant. N=1, but this week my family member asked for advice on a new laptop and their only specification was that it could not have windows on it. They don't have any Apple products but are happy to shift, or use Linux.
• llmthrow0827 1y ago
  I recently bought a Windows laptop, and the first thing I did was figure out how to not create a MS account, and next was to remove all the spyware/bloatware, and then after that configure WSL. When you get past all the garbage, it's a fine OS to work in. Then again, so is MacOS, many flavors of Linux, etc. As the importance of the OS itself becomes less and less important for general consumers when most people live in the browser for their day-to-day job, Microsoft will find it harder to sell licenses (maybe they already are?), and they will resort to more ways to extract money from users, driving more of them away. fwiw, I prefer the ergonomics of Windows to any other OS for daily activities and non-dev work, but it's such a weak preference that I wouldn't hesitate to switch if they ever actually force any of this MS account or always-online spyware without recourse.
• wewewedxfgdf 1y ago
  If I was Microsoft I would want the latest version of Windows running on every machine there is - old/new/slow/fast. It's a platform which means you need it everywhere. Microsoft Windows has really lost its way.
  • physicles 1y ago
    Windows as a platform lost the war many years ago when the web (and then mobile) took over, and is no longer a key part of Microsoft’s business since the CEO switch in 2014. Microsoft’s current strategy is to 1) keep a stranglehold on enterprise (so, Office and 365 subscriptions) and 2) make money on workloads regardless of platform (with Azure). What new software, besides games, targets windows anymore? If you wanted to target windows, what SDK and language would you build on, and how many times will it be replaced with $new_hotness in the next 10 years?
• zer0zzz 1y ago
  It’s always the system where you don’t want the live account that they force you to use it.
• scrps 1y ago
  Anyone still using windows should plug that hole and switch to linux or apple. If you are trapped on windows due to a specific piece of software running a virtual machine on linux is your friend. Boot up windows only when you need it and the only thing MS gets is one datastream of your single use of their product and not your entire digital existence. Same also applies for Apple + vm. Either choice on its worst day is better than what windows has become on it's best.
  • eimrine 1y ago
    Is it possible to run anything from apple without any accounts?
    • mwest217 1y ago
      Both possible and trivially easy. Just don’t sign into an Apple account.
      • BallsInIt 1y ago
        Works fine for macOS, not so much on iOS where you need one for the App Store
• golden-face 1y ago
  I haven't dug into this too much but the last time I set up a Windows 11 PC, I created a junk MS account, moved through the setup flow, created a local admin account once Windows 11 was configured and then delinked the aforementioned junk MS account. What are the downsides to this approach or does it not work as I think? I have noticed things occasionally run slow and then it seems like the fan is blowing constantly when TaskManager says CPU is at like 30% utilization.
• patates 1y ago
  I remember the first time I clicked the Start button on Windows 95 and the sheer excitement I felt seeing all those software categories. My dislike for how the newest versions of the operating system work is on a similar magnitude to that initial thrill.
• t0bia_s 1y ago
  Creating bootable USB disc of LTSC Enterprise IoT version of Windows by Rufus let you set up local account and skip it during installation. LTSC is basically debloated version of Win with options to turn of updates or get just security ones.
• userbinator 1y ago
  How likely is it that this is a coincidence with all the pervasive "digital ID" (read: mass surveillance and control at an unprecedented scale) schemes also being discussed recently? As long as WinPE and the core of Windows exists in its current form, there will always be a way to use Windows entirely offline. The modding scene also still exists, and although it's a fraction of what it used to be (the peak of Windows-modding was probably in the 98/2K/XP era), some extremely talented individuals remain and fight. (One might ask why they haven't moved to Linux; the answer is usually "because Windows is still more familiar, and it's more fun to hack and rebel". To them, to migrate to a different OS is to surrender.)
  • wltr 1y ago
    As someone who also was a bit of a modder during my young years (exactly that 98/2K/XP and even 7 era), I gave up circa time the 7 was released, and moved to Linux, then macOS, and now (last few years, up to 6, depends on what’s the starting point) back to Linux. First, I think ricing is much more enjoyable, you don’t fight the system for no reason, at least. And second, you still continue contributing to this weird hostile pathetic toxic system, instead of helping others seeking open system embrace Linux. Linux on desktop is the new Windows (meaning both good and bad, but I mean it mostly works for regular people). We just need momentum, and only M$ is to lose here. So what are you waiting for, Windows people? And especially Windows modders. Let that system to be a deserted land, why won’t we?
• vivzkestrel 1y ago
  I have said this before and I'll say it again. I am happy to pay 3x prices for a "Windows Optimal" version. 0 telemetry, 0 unwanted apps, 0 bloatware, 0 shady tactics for privacy bypass or making things intentionally hard to tweak, 2x the performance of Windows 7 as promise. If the hardware has gotten better since the era of windows 7 , why do I feel the software is going backwards. If I had a million dollars, I would advertise my request for such a windows version everywhere on the planet from Madison square to NYtimes and even write letters to Satya Nadella
  • eimrine 1y ago
    They use to get their 3 prices per every week of your telemetry, even snoop-TV gives vendors more than a dollar per average day of owning.
  • pndy 1y ago
    Each commercial OS during OOBE phase should come with two choices paths: express settings for majority and experienced for advanced users, professionals where you can tweak everything before system is ready to use, incl. telemetry and any sort of privacy settings, additional software and "recommendations" in whatever form. Both paths should be industry standardized with UI as much as possible so no cat-and-mouse play with hidden settings would happen, and both should be configurable at any part so even inexperienced user could benefit from disabling "recommendations" or bundled software. Such OOBE configuration should be also persistent - once the choice is done it stays and doesn't require "additional steps" hijacks every other large update. And at any points given user can re-run the OOBE if for whatever reasons changed mind about e.g. sharing data. This might be relatively simple to implement as a standard but would require actual commitment from consumer protection organizations, regulators that would push on companies. But somehow seems no organization care about these pushes - Microsoft goes each year further in limiting what uses can do on Windows. Perhaps as I said here already, there's some agenda of becoming the identity provider and going ahead with govt's ideas for online identification. Or perhaps it's just a plain greed for data.
• gloosx 1y ago
  Im genuinely curious, what is the issue if you keep using windows 10? I have a 10 year old macbook pro with a bootstrapped windows 10 for testing various things, and it looks like everything is kind of working the same way? Steam hardware survey shows that 32% of people are still using windows 10. Besides "security updates", there is nothing to loose?
  • y-c-o-m-b 1y ago
    If you don't care that a random person can get remote access to it, then no, I don't think you're "losing" anything. The biggest issue is no protection from 0-day security vulnerabilities, which Microsoft patched a lot of in 2025.
    • gloosx 1y ago
      So if you run as a standard (non-admin) user, don't expose network services, don't insert random USB devices, and never run untrusted executables or installers, can a random person really get remote access to it? I mean, even if you patch constantly, you are only safe from yesterday exploits — not from the next 0-day, and those keep coming super-often. It seems smarter to focus on hardening the system itself rather than relying on Microsoft to patch things fast enough and hoping you are safe in the gap between discovery and fix.
      • baobun 1y ago
        Keep it offline and in particular avoid surfing the web or opening untrusted files (images, photos, documents etc included) and it's probably low-risk.
      • y-c-o-m-b 1y ago
        I think the chances of a vulnerability being leveraged in your scenario is extremely low. For a machine connected to the network, the longer it goes without patching, the higher the chances of a security incident
      • npteljes 1y ago
• cocodill 1y ago
  I'm not a Windows person at all and only follow developments in Windows drama sporadically. Is it even an option to first install an old build of Windows 11 (21H2, 22H2, 23H2, ...) and hope that an update will bring the system up to a secure state? Or will it feel like installing Windows XP in 2008?
• mythz 1y ago
  The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhappy when a sleazy corp forces me to give up on 25 years of muscle memory of using my preferred OS, but I'm thankful they gave me the push I needed to rip off the ad/spyware laced Windows Band-Aid that I only need to do once in my life. It's been over a year since I switched to Linux which has been a breath of fresh-air, all my dev tools work natively, the console is far superior and I'm still able to play all my favorite Steam games. Best of all I'm not reminded daily that I'm using an OS that works against my best interests, I can actually use an App Store again that's been designed for the benefit of its Users, imagine that.
  • Neil44 1y ago
    I switched to Ubuntu on my main machine this year and even as a heavy 365 user it's better. Battery life is massively improved. I even still run the odd game on cs2. 11 feels like toy town in comparison.
    • pcchristie 1y ago
      How do you run 365?
      • TheWookieDavid 1y ago
        Not OP but 365 has web apps for every software offered. The only disadvantage is that the web apps require an internet connection and the native windows apps don't.
      • Neil44 1y ago
        PWA for Outlook and Teams, just straight web access for everything else. You can also access onedrive etc via the nautilus file manager as a onedrive:// url which is easier for some things.
  • gambiting 1y ago
    Sadly, as a developer there is no beating Visual Studio. Microsoft still makes the best developer IDE that unfortunately only runs on their worst OS. But as a C++ developer there is just no substitute(imho). Not to mention some development toolchains only work on windows(for playstation/xbox/switch) so if you work in games there is very little choice.
• mattmaroon 1y ago
  Amazing how many people in here don’t understand how the non-tech section of the business world works. Windows is in no danger of being replaced and age of the decision makers has nothing to do with it. You use Windows because you live in Teams and Outlook. You use Windows because you, your suppliers, and your customers are all using CRMs that don’t run on Mac and your employees of any age sure as hell don’t know how or want to run Linux desktops. You use Windows because you paid Deloitte consulting a trillion dollars to give you your whole tech stack and they can’t even spell Linux. I could go on and on but no, the corporate world doesn’t care that you have to have an online account (they prefer it), privacy is something you don’t even expect and is managed by IT anyway, etc. I’ve been hearing how home users are going to switch to Linux for 25 years with no change in marketshare. They’re not. Nobody cares anymore, it’s like saying that HD-DVD is going to win the format war over Bluray now. It’s yesterday’s battle and the victory already divvied up the spoils.
  • Ekaros 1y ago
    Also from corporate perspective Entra, AD and Identity Platform is very good thing. Single sing on linked to laptop or desktop to every single service. In best case it is automatic. Ensure whatever you want on OS level. Centralised management and control. Exactly what enterprises want. Local accounts is more what they do not want.
• Almondsetat 1y ago
  Windows makes the most money in enterprise, where you already have domain logins. For normal consumers, Microsoft just wants to extract as much data (i.e. money) out of you.
• mft_ 1y ago
  I’d love to be able to move to Linux as Microsoft continue to find yet more ways to enshittify, but sadly there are some software areas that just aren’t ready yet. * Professional MS Office / Sharepoint use - if you need the installed apps, there’s just no alternative. Amusingly MS have helped the Linux migration with their browser alternative/lite versions, but IMO they’re only suitable for smaller and less involved documents. * CAD - aside from Freecad (def. not for me) most top established CAD packages are Windows-only (with a subset also working on Mac). * Desktop publishing - there’s nothing I’ve found to rival even old PagePlus, let alone InDesign or QuarkXpress. (I may give Scribus another try at some stage; I auditioned it as a possibility for an elderly relative a while ago and it was no-go then.)
• ItsBob 1y ago
  I was using Win 11 for a year or so until recently but I'd had enough. It was laggy and I was scared to download updates as they break things way too often. I understand the complexity with the Windows codebase... it's fkn massive! However, to be able to push out a Windows update and break something literally every single time is something for the history books! Anyway, I need Windows for some of my software, like my VST's (Roland Earth Piano, XLN Audio) so Linux isn't an option unless there is something I'm missing! I use Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC with the Massgrave activation... that's me until I retire hopefully. I'd encourage everyone to do the same.
  • high_na_euv 1y ago
    I've used w11 on both private and work PC and had 0 issues except sound UI being not resizable sometimes and requiring restart
    • ItsBob 1y ago
      Latency. It's everywhere. Open file Explorer and it lags. Change the volume and the slider lags with the example sound and just a general sluggishness compared to Windows 10. Also updates have broken my printer 3 times (that I can remember). At least once my network connection failed due to updates. With the resources they have, it's unforgivable.
• shahindohan 1y ago
  I just want to set my username so it's not the first five letters of my name, that's the only reason I do the local account first before signing in with my MS account
• renegat0x0 1y ago
  Two things: - I wanted to install minecraft for my boy. I couldn't just start a game. It required me to tie in account to the system. First I don't like that. Second is that we have lost pin, and could not remember password or something, so we have gone through maze of xbox, microsoft online settings and whatnots. On Linux? Pass account, and password, we are set to go - The second encounter was with playing a older FIFA game. After launching it complained about some dll file. Turned out it was missing VC redistributable. You had to manually find, and visit, Microsoft page, download old type installer, which my kid was not familiar with (Next, Next, C: program files, I accept). After so many occasions I see that linux is even easier than Windows. I use bottles to play Warhammer Boltgun. Sure it stutters some times, but not that much. The pros and cons of having Linux looks better every day.
  • andai 1y ago
    I had the same experience, except I DID remember my password, but it wanted me to merge my Mojang and Microsoft account, and I went thru some broken login loop for like 20 minutes before I had appeased the gods...
• rullelito 1y ago
  They are making it really hard for me to not just go Steam Deck and Linux.
• Vipsy 1y ago
  The saddest part is, Windows 11's MS account lock-in feels like the logical next step for an OS designed by committees and PMs playing metrics games. The user-hostile design isn't isolated––it's just another symptom of a company where stock price and engagement numbers trump every other concern. What I miss is the era when engineers seemed to have more say, and features existed because they were actually useful. At this point, moves like this are basically an advertisement for Linux and Mac. Every time MS doubles-down, the free and open alternatives get that much more appealing.
  • willis936 1y ago
    >moves like this are basically an advertisement for Linux and Mac. Every time MS doubles-down, the free and open alternatives get that much more appealing Apple: free as in speech, not free as in Porsche.
  • keyringlight 1y ago
    > At this point, moves like this are basically an advertisement for Linux and Mac. I don't think it's the decisions themselves, but the (inevitable?) consequence in the coming months and years. The biggest example would be WannaCry attacking winxp in 2017, except it's not just individuals/companies who haven't got around to updating but additional hurdles added by MS.
• Melatonic 1y ago
  Use the last version of Win 10 LTSC iot or Win 11 LTSC Security updates for years and no BS
• wolvesechoes 1y ago
  As always with such threads I can see people commenting that Windows is dead and Linux is all that you need, heck, is straight up better. Of course HN is a bubble, like every other place like this, but sadly, I would argue that this is the mindset that pretty common among Linux users and holds Linux-native alternatives back. For those saying that Linux is already better than Windows in everything, there is no incentive to work towards actually making it better. When emacs is equally good for those people as VS, when Linux gaming still depending on Windows APIs is considered a great success, when FreeCAD or OpenSCAD in their eyes do not lack anything when compared with professional CAD software etc, then you know you are seeing a bubble that will burst, sooner or later. I suspect in 2025 even project like FreeCAD would not happen, because today people for some reason believe it is fine to go away from OS that do not respect user agency and their privacy, and use web-based apps that do... exactly the same, but they are not from MS so that's fine I guess. For some reason Windows requiring internet connection is a bad thing, but driving Linux and relying on bunch of web apps that also require internet connection is good. Celebrating WINE, Proton and Steam OS as victories still baffles me, because the fact that FOSS and Linux world couldn't create real alternatives and had to become good at pretending to be Windows instead is simply a failure. But hey, I know I am crying in the wilderness.
• Luker88 1y ago
  Sure, Evil Microsoft. But Apple is the one that normalized this. ...Like the developer account for mobile ...Like "sideloading" And this is why this things should have been fought much harder from the beginning. These companies are merely copying what the other is getting away with.
  • AmazingTurtle 1y ago
    can you please stop your whataboutism
    • AlexandrB 1y ago
      That's a pretty uncharitable take. Parent wasn't defending Microsoft and it's worth recognizing that this move is part of a general pattern on the part of "big tech".
  • throwaway290 1y ago
    This is false, I use one of my Macs without logging in to Apple. Getting Xcode is the only culprit.
• bilekas 1y ago
  There was a great expression I read in relation to Microsoft's Xbox division, they recently increased their prices in some cases by 100% but one commentor said "They're too big to care". I think this applies now also with their complete disregard for the windows 10 EOL. Exposing, if I remember correct : ~40% of the windows market [0]. This seems to me as negligence in their duty to ensure a level of security and quality. The people who've made these decisions don't seem to realize that there are more options than ever to replace them. It's almost as if they're actively pushing people to find them. Their Azure offering is making ground though [1] and maybe that's where they want to put their efforts in. If that's the case, good riddance. > “While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use.” Imagine being able to use your device however you wanted to. Apperantly that luxury is no longer yours. I've had to setup windows 11 on machines with no wifi drivers from w11 and without the oobe overwrite I would not be able to complete the installation. What possible reason could they have for that. [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk... [1] https://turbo360.com/blog/azure-market-share https://turbo360.com/blog/azure-market-share
  • fireflash38 1y ago
    It makes me wish for legislation to force companies to either 1. Provide security LTS for critical software as-purchased. If you bought Win 7, you get it. No forced upgrades. Or 2. Force release of source code if not providing LTS. You don't want to support it fine. But don't block people from what they bought. Pipe dream and wildly expensive to corps but hey they don't give a shit about us anyway.
    • bilekas 1y ago
      > 2. Force release of source code if not providing LTS. You don't want to support it fine. But don't block people from what they bought. Tangentially there is a movement happening in this regard for video games for studios to provide EOL options instead of bricking the game you bought. For software I haven't seen an example of local installations that get bricked after remote services go offline. Maybe for example if Jetbrains closed shop tomorrow and basically said to all users, your license wont be validated, too bad.
• a_e_k 1y ago
  I really don't get this move. It's one thing to try to steer basic, non-technical users toward an MS account by default. Fine; I may not like that, but I get it. But at this point, anyone left who's still using these methods to create a local account is likely to be a technical user who's deliberately and intentionally wanting a stay on local account for whatever their own reasons. I suspect that's a rather small group, which leaves me puzzled: (1) is the juice really worth the squeeze, and (2) is it really worth being so hostile to your power users?
• 1970-01-01 1y ago
  Nobody wants this. The "Stop! You're using it wrong" OOBE continues for profit reasons and profit reasons only.
• cess11 1y ago
  An intern of mine recently took the jump from Windows to Linux Mint. She managed to figure out the installation and configuration, and now she's very, very pleased with having passed that hurdle. Everything feels faster, and to her it was a wow-experience to have office software without the hassle of payments. According to her the only drawback is that some games and gaming clients don't work, notably the Riot client, but enough do work that she's satisfied anyway. She found she prefers Thunderbird to Outlook and the package catalog is much nicer than both the MICROS~1 application store and ye olde 'download and double click this binary, hope you won't forget to uncheck the spyware checkbox!' style of program management. Next project is to get my CEO to make the switch.
• sundvor 1y ago
  Would it kill them to let me specify my own username, as it appears in `c:\users\$username` ?
  • Athari 1y ago
    It's in the article, they let you now. And working on making it better.
    • sundvor 1y ago
      I missed that - thanks!
• bargainbin 1y ago
  Good for them. This and Copilot are the reasons I use linux full time now, after.. 30 years of being a Windows user? Seriously you could install a modern distro with KDE on any computer and the average user would get by fine. And more enterprises are starting to enable macOS and Linux as browser based tooling becomes the norm. Why would anyone start with Windows at this point? And if I were Microsoft, why would I spend money to make life worse for the incumbent users?
• mort96 1y ago
  The stated "reason" makes no sense: > While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use. If they're only worried that their users may end up with an incomplete Windows install, surely the solution is to provide a better way to set up Windows with a local account? It's not like people are digging around in CMD and RegEdit during the install for the fun of it, they could immediately stop everyone from using these workarounds by adding back the "set up with a local account" button
  • mzajc 1y ago
    They're not worried about that, they're worried about users not creating and using microsoft accounts. The stated reason could be a paragraph of lorem ipsum and it wouldn't make the press release any less obtuse.
    • LoganDark 1y ago
      Everyone knows they're not worried about that. GP is simply pointing out a hole in their story of claiming to care about something else.
  • rcxdude 1y ago
    "Fully configured for use" in Microsoft's eyes means that you've turned on all the extra crap they nag you about in the setup screen, which 99% of users who are skipping the account setup also don't want.
  • raxxorraxor 1y ago
    The user isn't in focus here, it is about placing their often quite defunct products and to make people dependent. These are probably the typical fail-upwards product manager decisions. Maybe Windows will sooner than later go the way of the Xbox.
  • dist-epoch 1y ago
    They mention in the article: there is a way to use bypass Microsoft account setup, but you need to use an unattended setup file. And these tools didn't want to use that.
• ta12653421 1y ago
  Question out of curiosity: On todays hardware, it should be possible to run Windows in a VirtualBox on a Linux System, or am I wrong? Thinking about this to be my next setup for the next machine (in 1 or 2 years) Im mainly using corp & office software and MS dev tools - those should be useable in a virtualized Windows? Any experience?
  • fransje26 1y ago
    > Any experience? Yes. As you transition to using Windows less and less, you'll get reminded more and more about how much of a pain it is to use, and how much of a Stockholm Syndrome you've developed over years of abuse. To the point that you'll be avoid Windows as much as you can. You'll be booting your system infrequently enough, that, at every boot, Windows will be unresponsively slow, hogging your CPU and your bandwidth to forcefully update whatever bloatware is in need of an update. It will nag you about needing to restart, it will stand in you way, it will make your experience even more miserable. From time to time it will simply announce that the system will be rebooting in two minutes, without any recourse possible, your work be damned. Because, why not? Who the f*k cares about your work? Be warned, you might reach a point of no return where you'll be avoiding this abusive piece of bloatware like the plague. You might discover light and happiness at the end of this dark, damp tunnel. You might free yourself from the PTSD you didn't know you were suffering of at the slightest mention of the word "Update". It will be a liberating experience. Come and join us on the other side.
    • ta12653421 1y ago
      I have a "media notebook" with Ubuntu 10(?).x.. LTS: One thing I always see when using this machine - this version at least has some problem with the memory manager: Very often the system comes up from hibernation mode and does not stop swapping whatever stuff to disk, making it unusable until I reboot completely - this at least works on Windows :-D
    • maples37 1y ago
      Can confirm. Daily drive Linux for software development, and have a Linux on a laptop for gaming (Silksong anyone? :D). I keep a Windows 10 partition around on the laptop for Fortnite with friends, but that's about it. I was actually pleasantly surprised the other day, I booted into Windows for the first time in several months and it was surprisingly quiet. No nags, no bs. Just "normal" stuff like Epic Games forgetting my account again and Windows updates going on in the background. My friend whose laptop has Windows 11, on the other hand, that was a WILD experience. Similar situation, he mostly only brings it out for gaming with friends. He also had gone several months without booting, and the system was borderline unusable. Like, the battery settings page would refuse to open until he waited for the updates to finish and rebooted. No error, just an infinite loading spinner. Windows 11 also seemed much more aggressive about hogging the laptop's Internet connection -- our laptops were both downloading Windows updates and Fortnite updates at the same time, and my Fortnite update was literally progressing at twice the speed (~200mb/sec vs his ~90mb/sec). Anyway, all that to say, I don't miss Windows, and anytime I'm exposed to it, that attitude is constantly re-affirmed.
• hxii 1y ago
  While my D2D is MacOS and Windows 10, I’m not a newcomer to Linux and I WISH I could just move myself and my wife to Linux instead of waiting until W10 kicks the bucket. But until the experience and process are seamless (or at least much more simplified), I honestly cannot see people “just switching”. I had to jump through SO MANY hoops to stop my case fans from automatically spinning at 100% and getting CoolerControl to work (see it87 and Gigabyte), and it’s still happening, that it’s not even remotely amusing anymore.
  • omnimus 1y ago
    Its a hw lottery. I got random cheap lenovo yoga and never had issue. I run Bazzite dx.
  • wltr 1y ago
    As a relatively long-time desktop Linux user, now I approach all hardware makers as ‘oh, loser I’d never buy from’ including NVidia (which support is better on Linux, last time I’ve heard of them). I understand that’s a bit of a bubble, as I was sure Microsoft is irrelevant for many years, and I’m quite surprised each time I hear they’re not bankrupt. But still, it’s not very difficult mindset that you have to choose from ‘responsible’ (for the lack of a better word) hardware developers. Oftentimes it’s ‘just buy another piece of hardware’ thing. As a grand example, it looks like current M-generation Macs are all awesome and all, but I value Linux so much more that I’d rather have an obviously worse hardware than deal with Windows or even modern-day macOS. Apart from that, I see zero issues with Linux, it just works. And is very efficient, aesthetically pleasing (mostly), and has not-so-bad UX.
  • physicles 1y ago
    I have a similar experience with my GPU. Got a 3090 and found that nvidia’s linux driver enforces a minimum GPU fan speed of 30% regardless of temperature. That’s unacceptably loud if you’re in the same room. After hours of searching online, flashing the GPU’s bios is apparently the only solution, so I bought a bunch of acoustic foam instead. I’m still 100% Linux on all devices, but this bit really sucks.
    • 1y ago
• daemin 1y ago
  The biggest issue I have with Windows insisting that I use a Microsoft Account to log in is that I have a long and complex password set up for the account which is stored in a password manager. I don't want to dumb down that password, I don't want to use biometrics, I don't want to use a passcode or pin to log in as that is arguably less secure. I just want a local account which I can set up a convenient password for. I'm fine with using online services, I just don't want my online services account being the thing that controls access to my local computers. Especially when it can be locked or deleted by Microsoft for whatever reason.
  • dist-epoch 1y ago
    I was the same as you, believing that using a passcode/pin as Microsoft is pushing is less secure. So I digged into it, and changed my opinion - Microsoft is right, for the Microsoft Account, using a password locally instead of a PIN is LESS secure. TL;DR: if you want to allow offline login, you need to keep the hash/token to the Microsoft Account locally, and this is dangerous, some malware could steal that, and impersonate you to login to your Microsoft Account. Using a TPM PIN removes this threat - the hash/token is never kept locally, so there is nothing to steal, and Microsoft could still ask for the account password from time to time when they need to refresh the token, and you can't brute force the short PIN (yes, this requires trusting the TPM) > I just don't want my online services account being the thing that controls access to my local computers. Especially when it can be locked or deleted by Microsoft for whatever reason. That never happens. You can boot from an Windows install ISO and reset the credentials if you really need to get in. True, might be difficult for your average user.
    • daemin 1y ago
      Or you know, just use a local account for logging into your local machines which are physically present in your home. No need to require an active Internet connection, no danger of your online account being unavailable and thus preventing access to your own computer.
    • majke 1y ago
      > if you want to allow offline login, you need to keep the hash/token to the Microsoft Account locally, I'm not following. I thought the whole issue is that users _do not_ want to use microsoft account locally and that microsoft fights that.
• qwertox 1y ago
  Microsoft doing this with Windows, Google doing that with sideloading... It's a horrible situation. Specially what Google is doing, as there is no real alternative, like Linux is for the desktop. We grew up with computers where you could install anything, code programs to run them for yourself on your machine. This was also valid for smartphones to some degree, and it's terrible to see that you're now in a position that you can't "just code an app" for your phone, everything has to be vetted by the big ones. Once Recall spreads across Windows installs, let's say this takes 5 years, then all of the devices are no longer your devices, but just surveillance machines for those companies and their governments, granting you permission to use certain apps. Maybe the biggest problem are companies like Qualcomm because it feels like they only grant companies like Google the permission to use their tech, and not us, even if we own the boards they sell.
  • john61 1y ago
    We united coders have the power to change that. We have done it in the past. We are going to do it again.
• bvvgpc 1y ago
  They're really doing their best to make sure that people upgrade from Windows 10 to a Linux distro rather than Windows 11.
• buyucu 1y ago
  Stop complaining about Windows and just use Linux. It's easy these days.
• Roan90 1y ago
  Been using kubuntu for 3 years. Will never use windows again. Win10 still there for once a year legacy app
• xela79 1y ago
  So I just figured out a workaround that actually works! At least until Microsoft puts out a new Windows installer that fixes this, here's what you can do: First, make sure you unplug your ethernet cable or turn off WiFi before you start installing Windows. This way your computer isn't connected to the internet during setup. When you get to that screen where it's asking you to sign in with a Microsoft account (you know, the annoying one from the post), here's the trick: press SHIFT and F10 at the same time. This opens up a command prompt window. Then just type this command: start ms-cxh:localonly and press Enter. It should bring up an option to make a local account instead! Just fill in a username and password like the old days. After you finish the setup and get to your desktop, you can connect back to the internet and download all the updates.
  • xtiansimon 1y ago
    Hopefully Rufis will have a solution as well. https://rufus.ie/en/ https://rufus.ie/en/
    • sellmesoap 1y ago
      This is my favorite solution, I always name the user "online account" because I love irony
  • rokkamokka 1y ago
    According to the linked article, that's the specific thing they removed in this latest test build
  • ThePowerOfFuet 1y ago
    Tell us you didn't read the linked article without telling us you didn't read the linked article.
  • breakingcups 1y ago
    You haven't read the article in which they explain that that is the specific hole they're closing.
  • jonbiggums22 1y ago
• pragma_x 1y ago
  Lately, what I've been asking people is: what do you use Windows for, exactly? When the overwhelming majority of their stuff is in a browser, Steam, or Office, it's pretty easy to lay out Linux as an alternative. Nobody actually _uses_ windows itself, unless you're running some specialized software that requires it. Also, a lot of people treat computers as appliances: boxes of fixed capability that ship from a factory as-is. Basically, a very complicated toaster. Windows machines run windows, Apples run MacOS, and so on. The idea that you can deviate from factory spec is, frankly, not even a thought most carry around. One must take the time to be kind and show the path through this wilderness of choices and technology decisions. As for the MS Office thing, O365 and LibreOffice are the Linux-compatible choices I recommend. Depending on their use-cases, the latter is usually enough. I'll give O365 credit for multi-user Office and 1:1 capability with the current desktop option. That said, those aren't always compelling uses for the home-gamer.
  • npteljes 1y ago
    Multiplayer games with anti-cheat. Only works on Windows, or of course, I can risk my account banned. Heavy MS Office usage. MS Office is preferred for compatibility (toward other people's MS Office documents), and heavy usage means that the web variant are struggling. Windows-only apps like Photoshop, audio software etc.
• xtiansimon 1y ago
  Our small business needs to use Windows (at this time) for some Windows-only software. We work to configure each box as bare and simple as possible for all the normal reasons. I can’t imagine this will make our work simpler while maintaining our data security.
• kldg 1y ago
  Every Windows-shipping laptop I review, the very first thing I type up is the process for setting up Windows without setting up a cloud account. It's already a 7-10 step process on existing laptops. If they want to make that a 20-30 step process, I'm A-OK scaring off potential customers writing out a weekend project for them; I don't make money on sales, and people seem to appreciate me taking the time to write this process out. Do it, bozos!
• Roark66 1y ago
  I've been running Linux on my main desktop for decades (from when VMware workstation gave me access to windows on the same PC without rebooting). A couple of years ago VMware became worse and worse and KVM/virt manager is still missing critical features (gui performance is horrible on Nvidia unless you want to dedicate entire card and monitor to windows). I'd love to have a nice solution to run run old windows XP and 10 on modern Linux with even 50% native performance (on Nvidia) but it's not looking like my wish I'd getting closer to being fulfilled. So perhaps it is better Microsoft is actively trying to kill windows. Once it is dead it will be less of a moving target. We have amazing ways to run DOS. I hope one day the same can be said for windows. I have decades and decades of software I like to fire up once every few months to use (ham radio antenna simulation, PCB design, etc. Software I own actually own fully paid licenses for that becomes a pain to run). Currently I use kvm/virt manager and I'm suffering the bad GPU performance and crashes if I try to standby the PC.
• conartist6 1y ago
  Seals the deal for me: I'll never upgrade
• storus 1y ago
  I still can't change display brightness on Linux Mint on my 2 year old ASUS Zephyrus G14 with 4090 because ASUS used some microLED panel and Linux has no drivers for it. The combination of AMDGPU and Nvidia drivers also leads to situations where Nvidia GPU is not switched on for ML workloads. The only choice is still to run W10 on it.
• hnrodey 1y ago
  Normies that are upset with Windows will switch to macOS. You guys are smoking crack if you think regular people are going Linux.
  • eYrKEC2 1y ago
    First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win. J/k, but I still love Linux and as a family it admin, people in my sphere get pushed there.
    • hnrodey 1y ago
      I like Linux too. But also I can read the room.
  • a_red_horse 1y ago
    At this point, I’d just be happy they’re switching off windows out of spite. I’ve never been a Windows hater like some people in the industry, and have actually enjoyed and appreciated some of the weirdness and quirks from an OS perspective. I’ve also known But man this Win11 stuff feels so fucking extreme it’s ridiculous. No I won’t use your MS account. I’d have switched over to Linux or BSD if it wasn’t for games/niche hardware (yes, I know of proton, but this is an HN thread so my personal anecdotes override your evidence)
    • hnrodey 1y ago
      Regular people don’t even know to be annoyed/angered by the login stuff. This is nerd maxxxxxing.
  • mixmastamyk 1y ago
    Switching costs a thousand plus dollars, or you can install this on your existing machine.
    • jama211 1y ago
      If it were only about money, Linux would’ve taken over 20 years ago.
• tempodox 1y ago
  I guess MS has arrived at the final “E” of EEE for Windows.
• dr-detroit 1y ago
  [dead]
• ziml77 1y ago
  I've always set up with a local account as long as it's been possible. Not because I don't want a Microsoft account linked (I always end up linking one after installation) but because they don't let me choose my god damned username! I want my user folder to be C:\Users\[FirstName] but for some stupid reason they don't give me the option to do that! It just creates a name automatically based on the account email address. If they're going to completely remove the option to create a local account, could they at least let me override the local username for the account?
  • Athari 1y ago
    It's in the article. Microsoft has apparently added customization of the account name and is working on doing that in a more user-friendly way. As soon as they do that, I frankly don't care whether my account is online or not. I'm using Windows Store, Edge and PIN login; I don't remove auto-updates. Sure, there's some crap to remove, but it's a matter of right-clicking on a few icons and choosing "Uninstall". And no, I don't mind clicking "no" about 5 extra times when Windows asks whether I want some garbage on my PC. I'll spend more time tinkering with Windhawk and PowerToys than dealing with MS being greedy. I've been using Windows since Win98. I know what for worse or better. I'm not switching now, because Windows is still the only viable option for what I need.
• butz 1y ago
  We should collectively name this phenomena "Closing Windows".
• imglorp 1y ago
  Notice all the potential revenue operations for Windows: exfil your data, show you ads, sell your data, sell you cloud services. All these things require you to have an identity. Windows is not the product any more.
  • paxys 1y ago
    Considering they are selling it for $140 it is very much the product.
    • dijit 1y ago
      sure and premium games that cost $90 don’t have any micro transactions in them. Unfortunately, many MBAs will see it as leaving money on the table. So yes, the product might cost some money, but that doesn’t mean it’s meeting financial targets, since they grow year on year.. but PCs as a market are not growing at the same rate.
    • sixothree 1y ago
      So basically a year's worth of "advertising" money?
• tombert 1y ago
  I doubt it’s going to happen, but a part of me prays that people will eventually get sick Microsoft’s increasing bullshit and it really can become the Year of the Linux Desktop. Gnome has genuinely gotten pretty great in the last couple years, and I think a lot of former Windows would genuinely like it if they gave it a chance, and virtually any Linux you install will have less tracking bullshit than Windows. I suspect, though, people will realistically just migrate to Chromebooks, which I suppose are “Linux”, but not what I would consider the “Linux Desktop”
  • rpodraza 1y ago
    I would honestly do so, but if I want to run games and music production stuff (like Cubase) I'm pretty much forced to be on Windows.
    • tombert 1y ago
      I don’t play much AAA stuff, but Steam+Proton has gotten very good; I almost never even bother checking compatibility anymore. I don’t know anything about music production though.
      • dleslie 1y ago
        The snags arise when playing games that use specific anti-cheat measures. Which is particularly annoying these days because developers are forcing them to be active when you're playing single player. https://areweanticheatyet.com/ https://areweanticheatyet.com/
        • sph 1y ago
          Yes, but it's the usual suspects. If you literally do not play those, admittedly very popular 5 or 6 games, it's a smooth sailing. There's an entire world outside of AAA FPS games-as-a-service that require kernel-level anticheat.
          • SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
• ZeroConcerns 1y ago
  So, yeah, this whole thing is a bit silly, and also discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45497384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45497384 (and possibly elsewhere). My TL;DR: a. Get a Microsoft 365 subscription, so you can set up Entra ID and avoid the 'consumer' account nonsense; b. It would sure be nice if the EU DMA would also be applied to this obviously monopolistic situation; c. Do, however, note that there are exactly zero Linux distros that even come close to offering comparable functionality...
  • fph 1y ago
    Comparable to what? To Windows 11?
    • ZeroConcerns 1y ago
      Yeah, sure. I'm getting heavily downvoted here, and that's fine, but truth of the matter is that nothing gets even close to Windows 11 when it comes to Enterprise-ish deployments, and failure to acknowledge that is why possibly-better alternatives are losing. Source: I'm sort-of the IT manager for several around-50-employees businesses. All of these offer a choice of Windows, Mac or Linux laptops, because that's what needed to attract quality employees these days. For Windows, it's really simple. Order HP or Lenovo without an OS, put on the Windows 11 Enterprise image, and send it on along with the Entra credentials. User powers the machine up, selects 'for work', enters the AD credentials and gets a working desktop with AV, firewalling, Office and so on. MacOS? Slightly more involved story: we need to provide instructions on how to successfully navigate the forced Apple sign-in story, then download some dependencies to get to the point where the Windows users already were. Linux? Oh, boy... Even when standardizing on something like Ubuntu LTS, basic compliance and policy enforcement is a huge pain. As in: hours and hours of support. I've evaluated several supposedly-solutions for this, and, ehm, no... And: to be perfectly clear: I'm wide-open to suggestions for something better! If you can offer Ubuntu LTS, (or, well, anything) but with AV, firewalling and basic policy enforcement that can be remotely attested, I'm all ears!
      • BizarroLand 1y ago
• jonathanstrange 1y ago
  I don't care about a Microsoft account as long as they don't force me to log in, remember some kind of password,or use some Microsoft email. If they locked me out of my machine or transmitted data to their servers violating the GDPR, then that would be a problem. Windows 11 is a paid product, it's quite expensive, and that alone means Microsoft is fully liable for damages from negligence and failure.
  • hobs 1y ago
    Check the shrink wrap - in most localities you are leasing a license for which they tell you that you accept all liability and failure upon yourself.
    • BirAdam 1y ago
      There should be some kind of requirement to prominently state that a purchase does not imply ownership of any kind, right on the "box." The entire thing is quite deceptive. I am not singling out Microsoft here. Apple's AppStore and other digital purchasing methods are the same.
      • hobs 1y ago
        In my opinion anything like this is just failing to address the real problem, which can only be addressed by legislation. Having someone put a label that says "this is poison" on it does not improve the consumer situation when your choices are between different flavors of poison.
    • jonathanstrange 1y ago
      These ToS are fairly meaningless outside the US. Clauses that limit legal liability make a contract void in many (if not all) EU countries. That's especially the case for any kind of wavers of customer rights since these are plain illegal. Not in the US, though, so you're right insofar as the US is concerned.
• josefritzishere 1y ago
  Microsoft is so hostile to their users, it's genuinely surprising they maintain market share.
  • pavel_lishin 1y ago
    I would imagine that their home users are a tiny percentage of their market share; I'd wager that most people using Windows aren't the ones who purchased it, but are using company-provided hardware and software.
  • gethly 1y ago
    Microsoft will become the Nokia of operating systems. Nothing lasts for ever.
  • Krssst 1y ago
    Compatibility. Anticheats makes multiplayer games hard to run on Linux (still sad that Apex walked back on Linux), and hardware may have sometime random issues on Linux (for some reason my mic was not working well on Discord (did not investigate, suspecting something on the software side since I could hear myself well when testing but my friends couldn't); I cannot use multiple screens with my current video card without my text editor dropping to 10FPS for some reason). Plus Microsoft Office for people that prefer the ribbon over menus (but the browser version probably works well enough). Though I feel that sleep is more reliable on Linux than on Windows today with "modern" sleep.
  • pixl97 1y ago
    What are the users choices? Mac is an option, but Apple is plenty hostile to their users, and you're tied to their hardware. Linux is an option, but good luck getting that business software you absolutely need that only runs on windows working. Running everything online in a SaaS is an option, but at the end of the day those services aren't generally any less hostile than MS.
  • dartharva 1y ago
    It's because Microsoft is not a consumer company, it's a B2B service provider. They couldn't care less about retail users in general, to the point that it's been their policy to turn a blind eye or even tacitly support the blatant piracy of Windows among Home users across generations.
• Night_Thastus 1y ago
  My biggest annoyance is that I specifically bought a Windows 11 license, from the MS store, using my MS account. I did this because I assumed that if something went wrong, I would always be able to recover it. I could never 'lose' the key if it was tied to my account. Well unfortunately, MS screwed me. When I upgraded my PC I was apparently supposed to transfer the license before deleting the old PC from my account. Doing it in the wrong order lost the license forever - no way to transfer it. Despite having one license, one account, and one PC registered, MS refused to help. I tried to call support, but there are NO on-call support anymore. Only automated online support. No chat. Nothing. I tried over and over for a couple days and got nowhere.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • behringer 1y ago
    Sail the high seas and you'll never feel cheated again.
    • arcfour 1y ago
      Use free software from the get-go and nobody will feel cheated.
      • behringer 1y ago
        sounds good, doesn't work.
  • edm0nd 1y ago
    Just use Massgravel and problem is solved :) https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
    • oblio 1y ago
      LOL. I found that website today and thought it was named "mass grave".
• thorum 1y ago
  Am I the only one who has simply said “no thanks” to Windows 11? There were hints of where Microsoft was heading in Windows 10, but at least a lot of the worst “features” could be disabled. I find 11 just completely unacceptable software to run on any system I own.
  • prerok 1y ago
    Really? I found them reenabled after the next update. I just gave up and switched to Linux a year ago.
    • slowmovintarget 1y ago
      Same, but two years ago. Needed a hardware refresh and just bought a System 76 desktop with Pop!_OS. Good decision.
• SirMaster 1y ago
  >There remain a number of ways to avoid the Microsoft account requirement during setup, including setting up an unattended installation, but these are more complicated. Apparently checking a checkbox in rufus is more complicated.
• LeifCarrotson 1y ago
  Rufus and Massgravel still function as a pressure release valve to prevent too much outrage from building up, but Microsoft is working hard to direct more and more of the flow into the channels that get them the most revenue. If HN readers want to set up a machine without any of the bloatware, with all the "developer-mode" switches turned on, without a Microsoft account, there are still ways to get it done. I actually just set up a new laptop this morning with Windows 11 LTSC 24H2. I'm an engineer, I can edit config files and burn bootable USB drives and install Intel storage drivers in the setup environment and validate sketchy batch files and compare ISO hashes. Now that I'm done, it's got a pair of fully-offline user accounts, it stays out of the way, it boots in seconds, the Windows-only software I have to use for work is no longer nagging me about being out of support, I'm quite happy with it. But it was not trivial. Had I not known what I was doing, there were a dozen ways it could have gone wrong. I suppose it's nice that I'm not vulnerable to Mossad surreptitiously installing a MITM-patched OS while I sleep, but secure boot makes it scary simple to turn your new laptop into a $1800 brick. And I have a good sense for which links are the tools I actually want to download and run, and which links are scams. But it's nowhere near smooth enough for me to point a non-technical peer at it and say "Oh yeah, if you don't want your OS to do that, just install LTSC."
  • logifail 1y ago
    I've been using Win10 LTSC since it first shipped, but the pain of it just keeps on increasing (not being able to load the latest .Net; Teams and more and more other apps refuse to run despite the OS still being "in support" now and for many years to come). Any tips for moving to Win11 LTSC? (I've been avoiding Win11 for as long as I can...)
    • MarcelOlsz 1y ago
      We're so screwed. Tahoe sucks so my Sonoma days are numbered. Win11 sucks and win10 days are numbered. On the other hand the rails guy released Omarchy linux which is pretty great but it will take months to make it usable.
      • 1y ago
• rwmj 1y ago
  OOBE = Out Of (the) Box Experience, in case anyone was wondering. And not out of body experience ...
• blinkingled 1y ago
  Bye Microsoft - I'm already on Linux on all my desktop and workstation machines and working on migrating off of the MacBook Pro. It's only going to get more and more unpleasant in the commercial desktop OS landscape - need to start contributing money and effort to few OSS projects to keep the dream alive.
• lazyfanatic42 1y ago
  Isn't it kinda obvious that Microsoft is moving from a OS provider to a Cloud provider?
• SirMaster 1y ago
  So what's stopping people from using an older installer and then updating the OS after installation?
• portaouflop 1y ago
  Pirate it and you will have a much better experience for free
  • k4rnaj1k 1y ago
    Using a pirated OS does not sound like a good idea lol. Who knows what could be added during "cracking" of the license.
    • pshirshov 1y ago
      Nuthing. You could manually reproduce what massgrave does.
      • eviks 1y ago
        How much time would you need to manually reproduce their 20k lines of activation code? And what qualification would you need?
        • pshirshov 1y ago
          Last time I checked it was like 200 lines.
          • eviks 1y ago
            Check properly next time, their 200 lines PowerShell script is downloading some 20k line cmd monstrosity https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/blob/master/MAS/All-In-One-Version-KL/MAS_AIO.cmd https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/b... But this level of scrutiny is precisely why such DIY security claims ring hollow.
            • pshirshov 1y ago
              From what I can remember, there are like 10 various routines for different ways to activate different products and most of the code is just boilerplate, no? You definitely can trace the hwid codepath in a reasonable time.
• paxys 1y ago
  This could have been excusable if Microsoft was handing out the licenses for free, but the fact that you have to pay $140 (more than the price of some entire computers) and then deal with this bullshit is a slap in the face.
  • prerok 1y ago
    Exactly this. We've entered an era where you pay for the product and you are still the product. Disgusting.
• Redster 1y ago
  I know that there are enterprises and individuals who need Windows. I also know that I had been on Windows my whole computing life and made the switch late in 2023 and there's never been a better time to switch to Linux. I could have switched much sooner! I have found my Windows apps for everything work (or have equivalent or better Linux versions) and will soon be switching my non-technical wife over to Linux to avoid Windows 10. For her, I've looked at her workflows and setup a configuration that I can use on her new machine that will setup all of her apps and menu settings so it's as seamless a transition as possible. She rarely needs to update her computer or apps, the latest Debian 13 "Trixie" release is what I'm going to try for her.
  • Redster 1y ago
    Also, I have found for tweaking and customizing my own Linux machine, tools like Claude Code allowed me to be much more adventurous and fast at making my machine exactly how I want it to be. I don't bork my machine because I have my machine's configuration (I'm on NixOS, but this could apply on Arch or elsewhere) versioned in git and things tend to build correctly or they don't.
  • fnordsensei 1y ago
    Gaming seems to have been improving massively as well, in no small part due to Valves efforts if I’m to understand correctly. Other than that, there’s literally nothing I need from Microsoft currently. MS is little more than a rent seeker to me.
  • bluetidepro 1y ago
    For majority that want to switch but can’t yet, gaming is the biggest pillar still very far behind. Many popular games (and game related apps) don’t work on Linux, sadly. I don’t know if it’s ever going to change either because of it being a chicken or egg scenario where they don’t want to spend the time supporting it cause it’s not enough users, but it’s also not enough users cause it’s not supported.
    • popcar2 1y ago
      The biggest problem is probably work-related apps not working. Adobe products, MS Office, and certain niches like the music industry just aren't supported on Linux. Many ultra-popular games don't work due to anticheat, but some do. Dota 2, Counter-strike, Marvel Rivals, Overwatch 2, among others work perfectly fine. We've also reached a point where virtually every offline game will work too.
• citizenpaul 1y ago
  This is really going to screw over small places that still do manual setups on their PC/Laptops because they don't have the resources for a full automated setup. They gotta make back those hundreds of billions they lit on fire to chase the dream of eliminating all their employees with AI. This will force a lot of places to pay for Azure Endpoint to setup their stuff if you really can no longer sign in without an online account.
• Jare 1y ago
  After my recent (and dismayingly poor) experience with a new PC on Windows 11, I wonder: Windows 11 installer did not recognize my wifi card (integrated in asus motherboard), so my installation was purely offline. I had to install manufacturer's drivers via usb key to get the PC online. How is this possible in a world where MS wants installations to be online? Meanwhile, Linux installer recognized the wifi right away and worked perfectly fine at full speed.
  • tapland 1y ago
    For me it's been on and off, sometimes a windows installer manages to detect network cards and sometimes it doesn't. I think I've been blocked from continuing an installation once, so I assume you'll just have to plug something in that it can detect or grab an install image which has the drivers. I swapped over to primarily use linux a while ago, but was surprised that they've made windows 10 look like (what I think is) windows 11. When did that happen?
  • ls612 1y ago
    I had this happen in both of the past two machines I have built but both were installing windows 10 so I was ultimately able to just finish offline and then grab the drivers on a usb stick to get the internet up and running. The Intel NICs are notorious for not working without the intel drivers. I still think Rufus is perfectly sufficient for avoiding these issues and/or using autounattend. Ultimately you just need to get past first install and nothing else will be an issue using a local account on Windows 11.
• nowittyusername 1y ago
  I've been thinking to fully switching to Linux for a while now. But there was just not enough pressure for me to switch over, I think this might do it. I think the universe is done whispering in to my ear and is finally shouting from the rooftops.
  • prerok 1y ago
    Yeah, it takes some work. I did that about a year ago. Super happy. All games through Steam work, for gog some require some tinkering but it's not too bad. Do note what others have said about mods and some publishers' multiplayer games and music software. I am not affected but it's best to keep in mind.
• otikik 1y ago
  Oh no! How will I get my Kim Kardassian ads on the menu bar now?
  • WD-42 1y ago
    I’m going to deeply miss pre-installed candy crush when I switch to Linux.
• jimbo808 1y ago
  There's never been a better time to switch to Linux. For the longest time I was using Windows on my personal machine (for gaming), and MacOS for work. Not sure why, but one day I decided to try out dual booting Kubuntu (KDE Plasma + Ubuntu), and haven't touched a Windows machine since. Using MacOS feels bad now. I don't see myself ever willingly installing Windows again. MacOS is unfortunately something I still have to use.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • cheeze 1y ago
    >for gaming How do you handle the "for gaming" aspect? I'd love to move to Linux but Battlefield is about to release and that's what my friends are going to play, so...
    • pwn0 1y ago
      bazzite.gg
      • bbrks 1y ago
        Sadly, probably not, according to "Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?"[0] - linked from the Bazzite website. [0] https://areweanticheatyet.com https://areweanticheatyet.com
    • jcurbo 1y ago
      Battlefield's anti-cheat isn't supported in Proton/Wine, so you're stuck with Windows there.
    • Gander5739 1y ago
      Dualboot, I suppose
  • linepupdesign 1y ago
    [dead]
• Figs 1y ago
  Linux Mint is a very nice, easy to use distro for people who are sick of this shit and want to try getting off Windows...
• hooverd 1y ago
  damn, I remember when Windows 10 was supposed to be the evergreen OS.
• daveguy 1y ago
  I gave up trying to keep from using a microsoft account to login to Windows 11. Instead, I installed linux and created a Win 11 virtual machine. Fortunately, I only rarely boot the Windows VM. Now I have: 1. no more random reboots 2. fast updates 3. much lower idle cpu use 4. cleaner operation with fewer crashes 5. no ad garbage from the OS to worry about 6. much much faster linux environment (WSL2 is atrocious). It was 600% worth switching. Caveat -- I used linux as a daily driver in the late 90s early 2000s, and went back to Microsoft for work compatibility. Linux is much better now, but I still wouldn't try to get my parents to run it.
  • snichola 1y ago
    Anecdotally, my dad is pretty tech illiterate but he's been using Ubuntu for over 5 years. I got fed up playing tech support for Windows and had him try it out. He's been much happier with it. His workflow and UI stays the same, no forced changes. I just login every once in a while to run updates. I finally switched my desktop this year and I wish I had done it sooner but gaming held me back. Now any games that intentionally won't run under Linux are games I'm not interested in playing.
    • daveguy 1y ago
      I had a false start getting my mom to switch from OSX to Linux. She is tech savvy, and because of that she was doing more advanced things like mail merges for nonprofits, developing websites, etc. That was in the 2000s. I expect moving from Windows to Linux is much easier than moving from the Apple ecosystem. I still provide tech support to both parents, but since tailscale and quickassist it hasn't been too bad.
• mzmzmzm 1y ago
  I've used Win 11 for years and never had an MS account. If you just get the right European/enterprise/education image the first time you don't even have to do anything to skip OOBE. But it feels like the walls are closing in, and the day I finally can't do anything without an MS account, I'll finally daily drive Linux. Hopefully the part of my Steam library that will still need Proton will run smoothly--that's the main thing I'm scared of.
  • bob1029 1y ago
    Proton runs like a dream these days. I can't think of a game that I couldn't run under it that I really wanted to. The biggest incompatibility seems to be caused by multiplayer games or live service games with hyper aggressive DRM or anti-cheat measures (Destiny, PUBG, etc). If you typically avoid these kinds of games I think you'll be alright.
• dartharva 1y ago
  For those who don't know, there's an open-source script that automatically enrolls your Windows 10 copy for Extended Service Updates, which increases its life by another three years: https://github.com/abbodi1406/ConsumerESU https://github.com/abbodi1406/ConsumerESU
• labrador 1y ago
  I guess I'll be the contrarian in the thread: My main machine is Windows 11. I recently bought a refurbished laptop to make it a Linux torrenting machine with ProtonVPN. I first installed Fedora, which I hated. Where's the mininmize window button? Why are scrollbars practically invisible? What's with the hideous cartoonish desktop? I switched to Ubuntu, which I'm more familiar with. Installing ProtonVPN was an absolute nightmare. If I hadn't had so much experience with computers and if I didn't have AI helping me I would have given up. Windows 11 is a pleasure to use. I can't say the same about Linux desktop.
  • psunavy03 1y ago
    Story of the last 20 years. Linux desktop isn't made for day-to-day use precisely because it's been built by nerds, for nerds. Way too much "well if it makes sense to me, it should make sense to everybody" logic in its design decisions, and ultimately you need to be able to drop into the Bash terminal and screw around to even get to 80 percent of the functionality a Windows machine will give you dropped-in. Linux is for servers and dev work, not day-to-day use.
  • mixmastamyk 1y ago
    Fedora is not tied to a desktop. Though I recommend Mint/cinnamon for sanity. You may have to reach into the control panel to augment the scroll bars, that is sadly a sickness endemic to the whole industry.
    • labrador 1y ago
      I've read comments like yours in the past few days about Fedora. It seems strange to me that Fedora defaults to a lousy desktop when everyone says there are better available. I can't think of any other software that has the same philosophy "We know we ship something terrible but all you have to do is install this other thing to fix it."
      • yoyohello13 1y ago
        It's because Gnome is not "lousy" it's just not what you like. I love it, but you're free to use something else if you don't like it. They even have an official Fedora edition with a more traditional desktop installed. https://fedoraproject.org/kde/ https://fedoraproject.org/kde/
• myko 1y ago
  Pretty much done with Windows at this point. So sad.
• sergiotapia 1y ago
  Download and use Omarchy today. I promise, it's smooth as butter. https://omarchy.org/ https://omarchy.org/ I say this as someone with very little tolerance for linux bullshit - my job is hard enough I don't want to wrestle with OS bullshit.
• samiv 1y ago
  I just love it how the people in Redmond are so altruistic and continuously thinking about what's best for us users.
  • charcircuit 1y ago
    Yes, this is one of the reasons why modern Windows is so good compared to older versions. The ability of them to continually make the operating system better and have the telemtry to back that up along with internet updates being a thing allows iteration to improve things much more rapidly.
• rrrrrrrrrrrryan 1y ago
  Finally caved and bought a Mac this year. Never used one before in my life - I've used Windows / Linux / Chrome OS as my primary computing environments at various times over the years. It's just okay. Windows 11 is worse.
• pdntspa 1y ago
  Time to hug my Windows 11 24H2 ISO I guess?
• Permik 1y ago
  I just always try to create a MS account with example@example.com or example@example.org, then you just get kicked over the MS account creation and it prompts you for local account creation. This has worked always after they started pushing creation of online accounts.
• evo_9 1y ago
  How can I prevent Windows 10 from upgrading to 11? I have a gaming pc that's basically just for VR, and is ~5 years old. I play non-VR on my SteamDeck, so really I just want to keep my old pc gaming box running on 10 for (occasional) VR gaming at this point... also, pretty heavily invested in Steam (VR and non-VR) so I really prefer not to switch to something like Meta Quest, etc.
• __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  This is connected with windows 11 requiring a TPM. If all their users have a Microsoft account and that Microsoft account is needed to access all their passkeys, then they end up with a privileged position where they can aggregate info about user behavior based on their logins which, thanks to the TPM, the user is cryptographically locked out of interfering with, and their competitors are locked out of participating in by the fact that Microsoft controls the client. As always, it's about controlling users via high switching costs. I hope we come up with an improved webauthn spec which ruins this for them.
• joduplessis 1y ago
  I've got an Ideapad that had Win11 on - completely removed it and installed Ubuntu. I've primarily used a Mac over the last decade, but it's insane how close the Ubuntu/Gnome experience comes - really have been super impressed. There are actually a few things I prefer on it too - the only (rather big) downside is that the web runs visually worse on it. I don't know how, but painting and font rendering feels suboptimal (compared to Windows and MacOS).
  • Atlas26 1y ago
    I don’t like macOS or GNOME, but if I had to use something from that paradigm I think GNOME is way better. GNOME feels like how Mac users talk about macOS. Whereas macOS just has nonsensical stupid things like delete key behavior, apps staying open after hitting the red X, lack of window snapping, etc that make no sense in 2025. GNOME at least has a rationale and a workflow behind it, even if I don’t like it I can respect it. >the only (rather big) downside is that the web runs visually worse on it. I don't know how, but painting and font rendering feels suboptimal (compared to Windows and MacOS). This is definitely worth investigating as that shouldn’t be the case at all…web performance is one of the best benefits of Linux. That’s why it’s often recommended as the best developer system especially for web devs, as it’s the most native web platform that most web technologies are developed for and ultimately deployed to. Font should be crisp (assuming you’re not using fractional scaling, which can cause font issues on any OS). And painting/performance should be the fastest of the three major OS. On the same system Linux and Windows feel somewhat comparable with an edge to Linux I think simply do a a more responsive system overall. And anything beats macOS, even using a brand new Mac feels like molasses sometimes. I would investigate drivers/scaling/hardware acceleration, cross chrome/chromium browsers and Firefox to see if you can narrow down your issue.
    • joduplessis 1y ago
      > one of the best benefits of Linux > as it’s the most native web platform that most web technologies are developed for This is a very idealsitic stance. It's not the best for web because web has been refined where users are - MacOS or Windows. I wish it were different. > And anything beats macOS, even using a brand new Mac feels like molasses sometimes. I would investigate drivers/scaling/hardware acceleration, cross chrome/chromium browsers and Firefox to see if you can narrow down your issue. Simply not remotely true - try it yourself. The best supported distros (Redhat, Ubuntu, SUSE, etc.) all suffer from the same fragmentation of the Linux ecosystem. In fact not even Windows comes close to MacOS's font rendering (why do you think designers prefer it).
• tavavex 1y ago
  It's crazy how quickly most of this ramped up. Not that Microsoft hasn't been trying to push abusive but money-making "requirements" down users' throats for decades, but there have always been paths around them for people in the know. Now, they've changed course and are trying to clamp down hard on every little thing that's like this, make their software watertight. It would almost seem desperate if one didn't see how dominant of a position they're in. I'm tired of micromanaging all this, it's getting way too cumbersome even for someone who's grown up with Windows. I've stopped applying all feature updates to my Windows install because I know their current goal is to make your life worse (and more profitable) every single time. Once that install becomes too outdated, I'll move to Linux full-time - I've enjoyed it as a dual-boot experience, but games are still holding me back. Having to constantly tinker with my Linux install was another thing, but at this point Microsoft is making their software so annoying to use that it will soon outpace all the Linux hitches I've had.
  • jmuguy 1y ago
    Its kind of funny that either this change effects a really small group of people, and its just MS being weirdly vindictive about nerds not wanting to use a Microsoft account OR they have such a problem with people avoiding MS account sign on that they feel the need to do it.
  • bongodongobob 1y ago
    As someone who manages 1000s of windows devices.... Do the damn upgrades. That is why your device has issues. You can have all the moral complaints you want, I get it, but you're just making things more difficult for yourself. Either follow their patching cadence or switch to Linux. You're putting yourself into a purgatory zone that is only making things more janky.
    • tavavex 1y ago
      I mentioned feature upgrades specifically. Why is it so imperative to apply them immediately, especially since the older major releases receive updates for quite a while after it stops being the most recent version? I'm talking about updates like 25H2, 24H2 etc that supply new features, not the "cumulative" stability/security updates that broadly don't change anything in terms of UX. I don't remember these major releases ever fixing any problems I had, besides adding something I wanted to have that wasn't in an older release.
• herf 1y ago
  Here's my situation: 1. My Microsoft account is still @msn.com, which I don't trust in any way to be secure, since it's not an email account I ever use 2. I have lots of Samba and other shares that know my local login 3. If my router goes down, I'm probably going to log into this machine to fix it, and it won't be connected to the internet So of course I used one of the local account tricks when I installed Windows 11, and I hope they don't break it. Apple's solution of letting you have BOTH a local login and an iCloud account is much better.
• markstos 1y ago
  It used to be one of the distinctions that made ChromeOS worse was that it required a Google account to use while a Windows device something you had more agency with.
• r011erba11 1y ago
  I just got so tired of Microsoft BS like this I abandoned windows alltogether... after Windows 98 -- what a PoS release that was. Some nix or other as daily driver since then.
• dkersten 1y ago
  lol, I’m so glad I left the windows ecosystem behind over a decade ago. Proton and Steam Deck made sure I have no reason to ever go back.
• more_corn 1y ago
  You can tell this was a good idea because you can see a sudden surge in people reinstalling windows 7 a version that lacks significant performance and security updates but also predates the aggressively idiotic measures by Microsoft.
• jayess 1y ago
  Unfortunately, there are two things keeping me on Windows: 1) Office (libreoffice is a steaming pile) 2) Fortnite If those can be solved, I'm done with Windows. I've been a windows fanboi since 3.11. But I'm finally ready to move to Debian desktop (even Ubuntu has gotten crappy lately).
• BashiBazouk 1y ago
  I have been very impressed with the Steam Deck and if I ever build another gaming PC, I would be very tempted to skip windows and install SteamOS. But then I have a PS5 for the online/AAA/games with company specific launchers...
  • jcotton42 1y ago
    SteamOS isn't really meant for random PCs. If you want something like SteamOS, then I recommend Bazzite.
• jama211 1y ago
  Many of these comments are pretty funny. Only on HN would people think the public cares about avoiding having a MS account. Sure, many here may care, but I’m not silly enough to think most people do, or that this has any chance of “killing” the OS like many here seem to claim it will. Just a crazy thing to say. Sure, I’d love it if one day Linux got proper support and started to become widespread and Microsoft’s bloatware was impacted. But a lot more has to change before this can actually happen, obviously.
• driverdan 1y ago
  If you must run Win 11 you should be using LTSC, not the consumer version. massgrave has tools and docs to do this: https://massgrave.dev/ https://massgrave.dev/
• tomjen3 1y ago
  No Windows 11 anyway, since it can't run on my massive workstation class laptop... At least I have since migrated to Mac, so I guess it can just stay win10 forever.
• Razengan 1y ago
  Does the Common [Wo]Man have any control over any of our own shit anymore? I just got an iPhone 17. I travel often and have a bunch of SIMs and eSIMs from various countries, with varying periods of validity. With the physical SIMs, I can just pop them into the new phone and still use them for a month or two more just fine. (I specifically got a Singapore region variant with a SIM tray AND eSIM support just for this) But with the eSIMs, it goes for "approval" through the carriers, some of whom demand me to update my ID with them before they can allow an eSIM to be used on a new phone. When Apple announced going eSIM only in the US and other draconian countries, I thought nothing of it. Now I see how bad it can be...
  • Atlas26 1y ago
    esim is maybe my favorite mobile innovation ever. As someone who also travels a ton I could not stand dealing with a bunch of physical sims and would just end up not even bothering and relying on WiFi which made everything a massive pain. Now I have one esim provider that supports every country, takes all of 30 seconds to activate it for whatever country I’m traveling to. Also, your original point is irrelevant anyway, because every single part of validating an esim also happens with a physical sim, there is zero difference in the process on the part of the carrier, from their perspective a sim is a sim, doesn’t matter (and some might not even be able to tell) if it’s a physical sim or an esim. No idea what you’re talking about with regards to IDs, never once had to provide an ID to use an esim abroad. Thats likely some local government regulation.
• glimshe 1y ago
  I don't like these schemes. But is there anything preventing me from creating a whatever@live.com account and use that for my non-personal machines? I see this as one more annoyance rather than a true impediment.
• hulitu 1y ago
  > Microsoft is plugging more holes Like in the song: for every hole you give me, i (Microsoft) give you three.
• queenkjuul 1y ago
  I'm getting so tired of Microsoft's shit, but gaming and Adobe just aren't workable on Linux to the extent that i need. Plus Linux likes at act up on my laptop. Mainstream tech scene just gets more and more bleak
• anotherevan 1y ago
  I work in a company full of Graphics and Multimedia Designers and as we were discussing our impending needs to "upgrade" to Windows 11, the lament, "If only Adobe Animate ran on Linux," was uttered more than once.
• Seattle3503 1y ago
  Is there an official workaround for folks in airgaped setups?
• mainecoder 1y ago
  This is why I have hated microsoft since windows 10 they have made the OS unbearable to use, I still need to use it for work and gaming
• tsoukase 1y ago
  I cannot fathom why a SW developer ever needs to use Windows at least the last ten years. Do you work for MS? Use Linux and spin up a pass-through VM in your favourite supervisor. The decline of Windows will cause a huge power vacuum that Linux distributions can in no way cover. Who will support the huge swaths of tech non-savy average Joe and Brenda users (mostly device drivers, games, Office) that sometime will need to open the command terminal? May be a new future trillion-$ company will come with a new proprietary desktop OS, possibly based on Linux, like android.
• Fairburn 1y ago
  Let them try. 30 yr sysadmin with no patience for that kind of behavior. Ill install a turd and make it run before I let MS dictate how I use my equip.
• JimmaDaRustla 1y ago
  I don't ever access Windows without an MS Account...because I don't access Windows anymore.