This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Well I paid for what I have, and no one is allowed to rob me of what I pay for so I'm good. Sorry Microsoft you don't get to rob people any more than the rest of us. All it does is send people elsewhere.
"It would bypass critical steps..."
Which step is that, data collection? Shoving OneDrive down my throat by putting my Desktop in it with no way to easily remove it?
collecting data, and training AI of course.
From the other time this was posted:
95 is the stick, and ME is the stick up someone’s butt.
Where is Windows ME?
It repeatedly crashed for me. ~~Good~~ Awful times.
“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.”
Lol sure. If that was the real reason they'd simply let you create a local account. The audacious lying is just insulting.
potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use
Oh no, onedrive not working or the office nagging screen missing in the start menu, how will we cope.
It's not lying if what they mean by "not fully configured for use" is that the private data being captured and sent to their servers is not fully matched to a personal identity in their systems.
After all, they didn't say whose "use" that device would not be configured for.
Still, if they were actually being honest, this would be easily solved if they showed those "critical setup screens" BEFORE asking to create the account, and based on what the user selected then they would allow (or not) the creation of a local account...
I despise that I have to use this OS at work. I would never run windows on my own computer again. Its just insanity. Next they'll require a credit card to make a Microsoft account.
I could see them requiring government-issued ID. The age verification laws coming into effect in various states and countries make this a logical step for Microsoft. They might even start their own age verification service where you give them your ID and they vouch for your age with the sites you visit in Edge. Of course it would have the totally accidental side effect that everything you do on your computer could be monitored and legally tied to your identity.
Switched to Linux full time at the start of 2025 and haven't looked back. I fully intend to go the rest of my life without using windows again.
I've been using Linux exclusively for more than ten years. You've made the right choice. As if you needed anyone to tell you 😆
Don't plug to many, otherwise people might start jumping ship!
just making it easier to act like they don't even exist. I'll never, EVER get an account for MY computer.
If I was still a solo sysadmin, today I would be reevaluating the feasibility of dumping Windows altogether.
I installed windows 11 a dozen time at work (never at home) and I just click on "domain login", it just creates a local account and then after the install I have to manually join the domain. No Microsoft account enforcement at all.
It's regular Windows 11, not Enterprise, we are a small company.
But I'm wondering, this bypass is too easy, is it because it sees that the DNS server is also an active directory server, so it allows that, or the trick is that you tell him you want to join a domain?
Or maybe it's a domain enrollment bug because we're using samba 4 under Debian as active directory server and not Windows server/entra id/whatever they call it this month?
I don't know why it was so easy for you, but the last four Windows 11 machines I set up over the last two years definitely required increasingly complicated hacks just to not create an online account.
I don't think they ever said they plan to require it for Windows Pro or above skus. It's only home (you know the one business shouldn't be using anyway) that they said they wanted to enforce it on.
They actually did a lot of mess with Pro as well. There has been a "watering down" of Pro since Windows 10 to make sure that they can still do their anticonsumer crap to users. I imagine they also are trying to push businesses to get Enterprise instead of picking up relatively easy/inexpensive Pro licenses.
Dump windows. These megacorps need to fail.
