Using Windows with a Microsoft account introduces all sorts of issues that only power users tend to come across, and power users are who Windows Pro is targeted for.<p>For example, RDP'ing to a Windows Pro computer with a Microsoft account becomes a lot more difficult. Another example is that Windows still needs a local username and password, even if you've logged in with a Microsoft account, and this can get out of sync if you change your Microsoft account password online, meaning you now have a different local password to your online account.<p>It's a frustration that power users don't need and this is probably going to force me to relegate Windows to a VM.
Never again windows with Microsoft accounts. I have two windows 10 licenses, one home and one pro. I made the mistake of associating the licenses to my Microsoft account and now there is no way to move the pro license from the old PC to the new one. The Microsoft support site is a complete joke of unpaid chatterers that send you on wild goose chase, the web is full of SEO bullshit site that keyword-dance around the issue... Windows 11 for me is Windows Never, and I am well under to way to ensure that the 100 odd laptops at $company run Ubuntu next thank you very much.
Windows 7/8 are the last good versions of Windows IMHO. Yeah they have security issues, but I run them in a virtual machine not connected to the Internet where I need things like iTunes and MS Office. Some games don't run in a VM very well because of the overhead and abstraction (unless they're lightweight or not resource intensive). I have a separate Alienware laptop for gaming on Windows however.<p>My hypervisor OS is a Linux Mint install, with Virtualbox. I use Mint as a daily driver. I also use Cloudready[0] for interacting with the Google ecosystem. I can't recommend Cloudready enough, although I think Google bought out[1] Cloudready and it's now called Flex[2]<p>[0] <a href="https://www.neverware.com/freedownload" rel="nofollow">https://www.neverware.com/freedownload</a><p>[1] <a href="https://cloudreadykb.neverware.com/s/article/Neverware-is-now-part-of-Google-FAQ" rel="nofollow">https://cloudreadykb.neverware.com/s/article/Neverware-is-no...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_us/products/chromebooks/chrome-os-flex/" rel="nofollow">https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_us/products/chromebooks/chro...</a>
I hate it, not because it requires an account, but because Microsoft is nightmarishly bad at account management and has been since I was a little kid in the 90s. They somehow make it possible to have multiple different unsynced accounts across different services, so you constantly forget which is which, and resetting or gaining access is always an incredible hassle. I find myself having to reset my password literally anytime I want to log in to something owned by Microsoft.<p>If they could get their act together, I wouldn't mind. Most software these days requires a log in for full use, including most major web apps (even HN, you can't comment without an account of course) and services like gaming consoles, Steam, Spotify, etc etc. It's normal. The only problem is Microsoft sucks at it.
Ah we never saw that one coming. What really bugs me is why people keep defending these companies: this is straight up abusive, and we - all of us - should not accept these tricks. Getting you an MS account is one small step away from charging you monthly for the privilege of using the computer that you've already paid for.
Can someone explain to me why Microsoft migrating my Minecraft account to my Microsoft account is not a huge security anti-pattern, given that this is the same account I use to access my high-importance Azure account? Do we really believe that the Minecraft launcher presents <i>no</i> additional attack surface and handles authentication material with the same rigor as the Azure login process?
Dialing up the annoyance level to a 11. Microsoft has spent the last 6 years or more glacially gravitating its OS-developer features towards Ubuntu. Because they couldn't do better - VSCode being the one crowning glory - and not an insignificant one. The side annoyances of a barely functional Cortana & Edge, were things I looked past, now add one more, a required account - we'll be led into unknown realms of integration (not of tools) but of 'marketing identity' and SSO .<p>Developers by the very nature of their job are OK with torture, so I guess this will go un-noticed. Hopefully it will be unobtrusive as well, I mean how many more roadblocks can MS put up on that path to WSL prompt/environment. Its a small price to pay - (<i>negative</i> shout-out to System 76). But hopefully Win11 is more intuitive/bearable for people who live on the CLI.
“The changes will mirror the same requirements Microsoft originally added to Windows 11 Home last year, meaning you won’t be able to avoid Microsoft Accounts by creating a local user account during setup.”<p>If I remember correctly, when you install Win11 Home, it forces you to login with a Microsoft account. But the easy workaround is to unplug the ethernet cable, windows will realize it can’t connect and the local account option should appear.<p>Nevertheless, It’s stupid that MS wants this behavior by default
I don't understand Microsoft's product strategy. The push for WSL, PowerToys, a new powerful Terminal, was obviously a ploy to attract developers after Apple's hardware (2016-2019) and software (2011-) decline.<p>Now what? More telemetry, more cloud-as-default, required Microsoft accounts, Edge sabotaging Firefox and constantly making itself the default browser. I actually like Windows, I understand its flaws and how to configure it to get out of my way. But this is plain creepy. Why bother with all the "Microsoft ♥ Open Source" stuff? With VSCode? Their strategy makes no sense. I know they don't care about making money from Windows anymore, but surely they want to keep/attract power users and devs?
May the stars, the galaxy and all forces of nature combined push me away from any Windows OS from now on and, at the same time, pull me towards Debian and its likes.
My opinion stays unchanged: run from Microsoft like you're fighting for your life. They want nothing but to ensnare you into a web of proprietary languages and services until you can't do anything in your computer that is not controlled by them.
For the last few years I've been trying to change the billing address of my Microsoft and Office 365 account and it's still wrong. Microsoft account management is so feckin' stupid that I feel sorry for all Windows 11 users who will be forced to use it.<p>BTW before people come and try to tell me how to change my billing address, I know how to do it. I did it everywhere. It shows correctly everywhere on the websites, but as soon as Microsoft creates the PDF invoice that I need to send to my accountant it has the old address on it, despite it being updated <i>EVERYWHERE</i>. I gave up on it. I basically doctor the address myself and then take a screenshot of the pdf with the corrected address and send the image to my accountant so he stops annoying me that the billing address is wrong.
Microsoft defaults the local username to the first five letters of your first name, I believe.<p>From a purely practical point of view, I just hate that using a MA auto generates your local username (typically into something painful) this way.<p>So if your name is "Jonathan Smith" and you like to use "jsmith", bad luck, here's your "jonat"!<p>If you could specify that at least, it wouldn't be so much of an issue to myself.<p>A local account that I later link up has given me this control. Now I'll need a throw away, new local account, then link to my real one. What a PITA.<p>(If anyone from MS is reading this, would love if you could fix this. Just add a username field to the online account please).
The referenced blog post is still not clarifying whether this requirement will only apply to current and future "Window Insider flights" (which require a M$ account anyway to join the program in the first place), or be released to public builds as well. Everyone is kinda assuming that this requirement is going to apply to actual Windows 11 Pro releases, but the way they're phrasing this does not seem to imply that at all.
I feel like I see this exact article every year or two and then it always comes out that you can easily get around this with some type of easy loophole. Of course that might still get the majority of people switching to an online account but..... if you are practically giving away an OS for free is that really so bad?<p>Not that I am saying I support this change personally of course - I would much rather have microsoft give a CLEAR and easy way to set up a "pro" OS without internet. Why am I paying for something that spys on me again?<p><i>For a completely legal way to get around this: Get a copy of Windows 10 LTSC 2019 or 2021.</i><p>LTSC 2019 is officially supported and updated for 10 years until <i>2029</i><p>LTSC 2021 is officially supported and updated for 5 years until <i>2027</i> (confusing I know)<p>LTSC 2019 IOT is supported even longer but I have not tested it and it may have additional restrictions that make it not useable as a desktop OS (2032)<p>Microsoft will officially try to steer you away from LTSC by saying it is for embedded devices and whatnot - <i>this is basically just a straight up lie.</i><p>LTSC functions much more like Windows 7 in that it gets all of the regular security updates without the yearly giant "feature" updates. Managing it is much easier but you may not get the latest and greatest shiny microsoft new features. I have deployed it extensively in a corporate environment to certain people / situations and not run into any pieces of software that will not work on it.<p>LTSC also comes fairly stripped down compared to Windows 10 enterprise (a good thing in my opinion). However if you want things like the Windows 10 store its not hard to add it. If you enjoy talking to dumbest of the cousins in the Siri family then you can probably find a way to add Cortana back too :-D . It runs quite lean comparatively and with a few tweaks you can disable almost all Microsoft telemetry.<p><i>If you liked Windows 7 then LTSC is the closest you can get to that experience.</i><p>LTSC generally is only available to enterprise customers and education - no idea if you can purchase it stand alone. However an easy way to get a legal copy is simply to find someone with a valid school email or take some classes yourself - the microsoft volume licensing center generally gives away almost all of their software completely for free to students (even including their very expensive datacenter hypervisor licenses / server licenses / Config Management).
Can you use Apple products without an account? If not*, what version of Linux should I get setup with. Casual web development. I mostly use my personal machine for gaming.<p>Edit - Typo
This past summer I bought a copy of Windows 10 Pro when I built a new PC. Prior to that, I used Linux on my personal machines for 10 years. Though I knew I'd eventually regret it, I didn't think it'd be so soon. I've been very content with it, and then these idiots go and do this. It's a complete show stopper.<p>I still have to use Windows and other MS stuff for work, but I have work-supplied machines for that. For personal use, no more MS anything, not even VS Code or .NET, I'm done with them.
Since it's not clear from the article: will this affect people who already setup Windows 11 with a local account? Will I one day be confronted with a "Create a Microsoft account to continue using your computer" screen?
Guys, Microsoft doesn't give two shits about home users. Their bread and butter is businesses. And M365 is amazing for business.<p>If you think M$ suxors, you're not the target demographic. I'd much rather manage 200 users with M365 than some fucked up combo of slack, Google, Dropbox, and libreoffice.
Yikes, I don't like that at all.
These days I only use windows for games, otherwise I'm mostly mac or linux.<p>I guess I should learn how to develop unity games on linux sooner rather than later.
This makes me wonder. Google has been known for a while to ban accounts semi-randomly with very vague excuses and no recourse, so people would lose access to gmail and other services. Is Microsoft going to do the same? "Sorry, we spotted you voicing an opinion that doesn't align with our corporate interests, so we decided to lock you out of all your PCs".
There are two reasons why I continue to use a personal Windows machine - PC Gaming and Microsoft 365 Family. On the gaming topic, almost all of the games that I play are also on console which is where I spend most of my gaming time anyways. On Microsoft 365 Family, OneDrive backup and sync is the top reason why I have it. I use it to sync all of my family photos between my phones, PC, Macbook, and iPad for myself, my wife, and my kids. It is extremely convenient and hard to argue otherwise. Beyond data backups, the biggest reason why we have the subscription is because my wife really really wants to use the Office Apps because it is what she is used to the most (Word, Excel, Publisher). So to my family and I, Microsoft 365 = value and convenience.<p>For me, if a good OneDrive linux sync client was out there that would be a good reason for me to finally jump ship off of Windows. I suppose I'm just waiting for the right push to move away from Windows. Maybe this is that time. Hell, I already know that my personal PC (which I built early January 2021) "fails" the Windows 11 upgrade readiness check anyways so I already feel burned. All of the reasons why I used Windows for decades was because of its "value" for me. Lots of convenience, tons of community support and tons of software, etc. But not anymore. In my opinion, what Microsoft is doing with Windows is similar to what Disney is doing with their parks. "Value" is being removed while increasing prices and limiting "choice". Maybe I still do have _some_ "convenience" in using Windows. But I'm losing more and more reasons to stick with Windows over time as more of Microsoft's business decisions are impacting you and me, and not necessarily for the better.
> Set up your Windows with a Microsoft account (tiny text-only button “continue without Microsoft account”)<p>> Are you <i>sure</i> you don’t want to use a Microsoft account? (tiny text-only button “I don’t want to use a Microsoft account”)<p>> Last chance, are you <i>really sure</i> you don’t want to use a Microsoft account? (tiny text-only button “I don’t want to use a Microsoft account”)<p>At least it was something like this during the beta.
This was inevitable to be honest. They've made it harder and harder to use a local only account, probably to drive the adoption rate of Microsoft account sign ins up so that they eventually can stay "no one uses local accounts any more". Give it a little more time and they'll require Microsoft accounts for everyone.
Apple:<p>You can use Apple ID voluntarily to sync all your settings and data across macOS, iOS on iPhones, iOS on iPads, watchOS and Apple TV.<p>Microsoft:<p>We have no tablets, watches and not even a phone. You just have a PC and we force you to use a Microsoft account so you can sync all your data with our marketing and sales department and the government if need to be.
Microsoft is still kicking themselves that they didn’t think about making internet access a subscription service until the XBox, this will be the first step toward making windows a subscription service, since at this point they can’t do it just for the internet.
A few months ago, I had a non-feature update to my laptop running Windows 10 Pro (OEM) kick me to an OOBE-looking "finish setting up your computer" screen where the only way I was able to move forward and log on was to add an online account. Believe me, I spent an hour trying various things, and googling like a madman but I didn't manage to get around it.<p>So I did it with a temporary email address. Then I removed the account. Still on Windows 10.<p>Now and then I do a web search to see if other people ahve had this happening to them, but I've not been able to find anything. Then again, <insert the "search engines are crap" today discussion here>.
I don't love this move (I think people should still get the choice) bit do get it a bit more after doing IT support for the in-laws. My sister in law, who is not super tech savvy, has forgotten her password and also been prompted for the Bitlocker Recovery Key and called me on both occasions all upset.<p>Given she had signed in with a Microsoft account, we were able to get the password reset there as well as retrieve the key from there. If it was a local account then I imagine both would have been much harder. So for 'most people' it is probably a good thing.
This news about Windows 11 Pro "requiring" a Microsoft Account is a bit of sensationalism. You can still bypass it and create a local account if you know what you're doing, as has been the case for several years with Windows 10. Here is how:<p>When you see the “Let’s Connect You To A Network” page, hit “Shift” and “F10” simultaneously. This will bring up the Command Prompt to which you type the command:
taskkill /F /IM oobenetworkconnectionflow.exe<p>When Windows 11 setup detects networking is not possible, it will let you create the local account as always.
From UX perspective Windows 3.11 was the peak of Windows and it went downhill since then. Every time time I use Win7 or later for more than 10 min for anything other than browsing my blood pressure goes up.
I wonder why Microsoft thinks they can continuously get away with abusing their customers like this. I like the idea of -optional- SSO for stuff, however I hate hate hate forced accounts. Not everyone wants to be online 100% of the time and tracked by Microsoft, yet they seem to just not give an f. They WILL get your data so it can be mined and sold. It's so ludicrous.
How do you do this as a business?<p>I have to provision computers for users. I have to supply them with accounts and passwords. This becomes impossible.
I've been using a Microsoft-based OS since MS-DOS, but this hard requirement to use a Microsoft Account will finally be it for me. I'm not going to be coerced into making a Microsoft account, let alone linking my personal, home PC to one. Thankfully Valve has made some good progress in Linux compatibility.
I currently use my Windows box strictly for gaming. It’s a pretty low end box by today’s standards (16 GB RAM, 1st gen Ryzen 7, and GTX 1060).<p>When I build myself a new gaming PC, I highly doubt that I’ll be running Windows on it. I’m basically done with Microsoft at this point.
I won't be moving to 11. I don't want any of this.<p>I've already got my Slackware system set up for doing 99% of what I do.<p>Solidworks, I'm gonna miss you, but that's about all.
I guess I will finally have to move to that free macbook pro I was offered couple of times
now (we are 3 Windows / WSL2 users and 30+ MBP, which is sad).<p>Not completly ruling out Ubuntu too.
Hasn't this happened every major release of windows?<p>- Windows requires some user authentication on release to prevent piracy<p>- ... but always caves or puts OEM backdoors for major corps/customers<p>- and those get pirated.
I don't have to activate my MS Windows 11 account to use linux.<p>And I can create as many accounts as I want, without worry that MS will be mining the user data for advertisements.
<i>those hoping to avoid that will have to use a dummy Microsoft Account to then create a local one afterwards.</i><p>And then delete the Microsoft Account? Would that leave traces?
This just pushed me 100% to Linux. I’ll not sign up for a Microsoft online account to use my local computer. Whoever thought this up at MS needs to be fired.
Windows Pro is aimed at business users. Most of them will have moved or are moving to Office 365, so they will have (or need) a Microsoft Account anyway.
while just about all my computing I can do elsewhere. There is one aspect where I feel more confident in windows: VR. Sure you can run off an oculus - but the applications are still significantly better on a dedicated machine. I may be wrong though now (what is the linux or Mac way of doing this?) or later (Apple, c'mon don't disappoint).
Still up to their old tricks. So much for the caring, sharing, Linux-friendly, open-source M$. I remember the Microsoft of the 90s and they haven't changed much in 30 years if you dig below the hype. Anyone remember SCO and Suse being sued by M$ for undisclosed patents? Why would anyone who has ever experienced being locked out their Hotmail/Outlook/Live account ever trust M$ with anything related to security, logins or personal data?
windows is reaching its EOL anyways, it's gonna be an other filter, the ones who refuse to comply will just quit the sinking ship<p>what a poorly managed company, crazy
Literally a trap to hand over your encryption keys. Never sign into an operating system with a cloud identity.<p>You should have stopped using windows years ago. There is no excuse, especially thanks to Valve for their work enhancing wine ecosystem and making your games work.
I'd like to thank Microsoft. Their constant bloating and nagging and hostility has finally convinced me to move to Mint and it's been just great. I don't think I'd have done it without their help, but now I'm glad I did and wish I'd done so earlier.
Wishes: Microsoft just buy a linux distro. Bless it, so MS Apps only run on Windows. Make it free for home installs and remove these cloud login shenanigans. Friggin' keep charging Amazon and GCP for running it virtually (unless you actually want mindshare). I'd totally flock to Windows (and its paid services). I guess I just don't see why an operating system is still their cash cow. Feels like the stupid that is: buying your ticket and then paying for placement in an aircraft. Anyone remember when you could buy an airplane ticket and choose your seats because you're booking now vs later? 2020 on has been nothing but nickel and dime-ing.