Upcoming Windows 11 builds cannot install without internet and Microsoft Account

I&#x27;m also 100% convinced Microsoft will introduce mandatory code signing at some point and make it so that you can only ever install software from Windows Store.<p>They are envious of the Google and Apple walled gardens&#x2F;cashcows and are now determined to turn Windows into one.<p>Windows is no longer a product for users, the users of Windows are the product for Microsoft to be shoved into the Azure sales funnel.

It&#x27;s such an absurd lie. If Microsoft&#x27;s idea of security is to force its users to authenticate online for a local account, they should never be allowed in the software industry at all. They&#x27;re needlessly and dramatically increasing the attack surface of one of the most security critical software running on user devices.

A while ago, I needed to get into safe mode to rescue a laptop that wouldn&#x27;t boot.<p>Since it uses Windows 11, I originally logged in using my Microsoft Account and a Windows Hello pin.<p>Safe mode doesn&#x27;t load wifi drivers and the laptop didn&#x27;t have an ethernet port, so I couldn&#x27;t log in to my Microsoft Account to get into Windows safe mode. Didn&#x27;t have a dongle with ethernet port at that time, so I had to backup the drive and reinstall Windows instead.<p>That&#x27;s why I use Linux these days.

All these user hostile behavior finally tipped me over the edge last year after I started to get Windows 10 EOL popups. No way I was going to &quot;upgrade&quot; to a ad&#x2F;spyware&#x2F;subscription ridden MS marketing platform and be constantly nagged at to try out more of their services.<p>Moved to a Fedora Desktop, liberating to move back to an conflict-free OS whose primary focus is to serve its users, imagine that.

According to the linked discussion, the underlying setting that the script set still exists, so this simply makes it less convenient.<p>It should absolutely be taken as a warning sign, though. Seriously, if at this point you&#x27;re installing Windows and relying on the existence of that setting, you should be seeking alternatives.

Managing Windows devices at work using the online-first paradigm makes it clear what MS is trying to achieve here, but it&#x27;s poorly communicated, as usual. In the M365&#x2F;Entra world, the big benefit is having cloud Active Directory (Entra&#x2F;AzureAD) and automated deployment (Intune&#x2F;Autopilot) all integrated. For home users, you get bits and pieces of this, but it feels unnecessarily limited.<p>What MS wants (from a charitable interpretation), is the ability to encourage&#x2F;enforce full disk encryption (Bitlocker), TPM-based MFA and TPM-backed passkeys (Windows Hello), as well as tight integration with their product suite (Office&#x2F;OneDrive) and browser (Edge). Syncing settings, apps and other things between devices (or on setup) is also a win, though it&#x27;s pretty basic right now.<p>Though silly to a technical crowd like HN, FDE for regular users requires a way to not lose all their data if they forget their password or some other issue happens with secure boot or the device. Non-technical users aren&#x27;t going to understand the importance of backing up their Bitlocker recovery key, and without it, they&#x27;re hosed. During online setup, MS stores this key online to the MS account, so it is recoverable.<p>MS isn&#x27;t going to limit the integration and security they can provide by adhering to a local-only OS concept. It&#x27;s not what most users actually want, and their competition (Apple, Android) does the same thing, so users are used to it. I just wish they had a light (inexpensive) version of the Entra&#x2F;Intune package for home users that want to be able to manage multiple devices and get the real advantages of the online link.

There are a lot of &quot;workstation&quot; type enterprise deployments where by policy, internet access is forbidden. Microsoft knows this, at least for professional and enterprise editions of Windows, I find it hard to believe an internet connection would be required, like ever.<p>I would also say the same about require either a live.com or M365&#x2F;EntraId account for local login on AD joined systems&#x27; installations. Unless of course they require you to setup a base-image with an internet connection and then convert accounts to local-only post-install, which sounds like a typical Microsoft approach.

Accorsing to the first comment under the OP the script just runs:<p><pre><code> reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE &#x2F;v BypassNRO &#x2F;t REG_DWORD &#x2F;d 1 &#x2F;f </code></pre> So presumably the removal of the script won&#x27;t impact bypass methods used by the likes of Rufus and Ventoy.<p>Either way, I&#x27;ve been happily on Fedora for a while now, with very minimal &quot;fuck I can&#x27;t do that here&quot;

Earlier on HN: <i>Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account</i> (theverge.com)<p>139 points | 5 hours ago | 125 comments <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43511073">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43511073</a>

In October when Windows 10 support ends it&#x27;ll finally be the year of desktop linux.

When you&#x27;re forced online, you become less resistant to products and services being fed from the cloud, then computers can be produced cheaply with less storage and resources, and almost everyone will end up running dumb terminals. It doesn&#x27;t happen overnight, but more and more people would rather buy a 150 bucks PC plus pay per use services rather than a 250 one that can host and run installed software, then the market would do the rest by making real computers more expensive as they transition to niche products. I&#x27;d rather start familiarizing with open and less intrusive operating systems.

Windows 11 is the reason I’ve returned to Linux after a decade away. Microsoft doesn’t seem to be concerned about killing the golden goose. I wonder if they have data on just how much hostility users are willing to put up with?

Perhaps they could actually ship some wifi&#x2F;ethernet drivers with their installer then.

That Xbox employee that was smugly and fanatically defending the always online fiasco way back (who ended up getting fired for defending the sales pitch) must be screaming.

Good old days - when the software was a box full of floppy disks or CDs which you buy at a store and bring them home and modify registry settings etc.<p>Software is no longer a product like a chair and table which you can just buy and move it from the store to your home. It is more like a managed service like a utility connection. It is available for use only as long as the vendor allows it. You buy a subscription and play nice. The buyer might also not have the admin user privileges on the software they bought with their money.<p>The same might happen to cars and all other smart devices as well. Cars might always be connected to the car company, which might have some remote control over the car. Phones are already like this. It is a matter of time, all your home appliances are partly controlled by the companies who sold them.

Is there a good reason (other than licensing and Linux as an alternative) I shouldn&#x27;t use Windows Server 202X as a Desktop OS?

cough, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;massgrave.dev&#x2F;genuine-installation-media" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;massgrave.dev&#x2F;genuine-installation-media</a> cough

Microsoft knew they were losing the client device market to iPhone and Android (after their Windows Phone flopped). So they essentially gave up on improving Windows, and decided to turn it into a thin client for Microsoft cloud services. For this model to work well, they need to force users to have a stable identification, aka Microsoft account, in order to login to the thin client.<p>Windows is over. I moved to Apple silicon a while ago and never looked back. Even though macOS has its warts, it&#x27;s not hostile to its users.

&quot;Challenge accepted.&quot; Much like with the TPM &quot;requirement&quot; and the others, I don&#x27;t expect this one to stay undefeated for long.

Does anyone have an idea if you were to enable wifi and register a MS account exactly what data is being sent to them? Do they send your MAC address? Obviously your IP address and I assume during account creation they would want your phone number&#x2F;alt email? I can see Windows not being accessible as some places genuinely don&#x27;t have internet, and if they do, it&#x27;s heavily restricted. I&#x27;ve also heard if you enter something like &quot;a@a.com&quot; or a banned email during setup it can let you through?<p>Obviously this is a way of &#x27;legitimizing&#x27; consent to data collection and it would be very interesting to see a breakdown of every byte of data MS gets sent (even file explorer communicates with a US IP address).<p>I genuinely think the EU needs to take a look at this, I would be very surprised it this wasn&#x27;t abusing their monopoly-like position for mandatory data collection (although, they probably welcome it!).

I avoid Microsoft products at any cost, and have done so since I began using computers in the 1980s. I suggest others do the same. The company and its practices are unethical and morally bankrupt: and those products don’t even work well. The more people who stop using Windows the less they will have control of gaming.

Save us SteamOS

They want everyone using Microsoft accounts so they can turn computer usage into a subscription service, plus with Recall you get perfect telemetry. Panopticon is here and you pay for the pleasure.

What happens if your online Windows account gets banned? How do you log in?

[dupe] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43511073">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43511073</a>

BTW is there still a way to disable the stupid pin login on windows 10 and&#x2F;or 11?<p>One that works this week, what I found online did not help.

Why does Microsoft continue to publish a Windows 10 ISO.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;software-download&#x2F;windows10ISO&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;software-download&#x2F;windows10I...</a><p>Does MS try to force an automated upgrade on anyone who installs it.

Windows is the first thing that gets deleted on a new PC.<p>An acquaintance of mine works for Microsoft. Every time I meet him, he always tells me how much money hey makes. I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s double of what I earn when I have a good year. A big part of me wants to earn that money, too. But an unwavering part of me knows, I could never work for Microsoft.<p>At this point it is not just bitterness from their anti-Linux, anti-FOSS FUD days:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20010201090600&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dot-lies.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20010201090600&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dot-lie...</a><p>It is knowing that I don&#x27;t align with their philosophies, at all.<p>I can feel it every time I try to use one of their broken, unloved UIs.

I haven&#x27;t had Windows on a computer I own since 2009. I only use it on the work computer as it&#x27;s the garbage they install and lockdown. The best thing you can do for your life is go Microsoft-Free. Don&#x27;t do drugs, don&#x27;t do MICROS~1.

How does this work for secure environments which are supposed to be air-gapped? Does Microsoft offer a special on-premise licensing server? I cannot image they just throw up their hands for such clients and suggest an alternative OS.

&gt; &quot;We&#x27;re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11.&quot;<p>.·°՞(˃ ᗜ ˂)՞°·.

I&#x27;m surprised that they&#x27;re doing this now, with how strained international relations are. I&#x27;m sure their timing will help motivate serious non-us customers to look at linux for desktop use.

I keep installing without Microsoft accounts just fine. People keep not realizing there is literally a option for this in the installer still, it&#x27;s just not named &quot;skip microsoft account&quot;. LOL

There&#x27;s always Windows 11 LTSC<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;massgrave.dev&#x2F;windows_ltsc_links" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;massgrave.dev&#x2F;windows_ltsc_links</a>

It is very hard to use Android without a Google account. Most people accept that. They must have learnt from that.

I assume that any version one might actually use will have this patched out by the torrent packager.

All the computers are connected to the Internet? Can you still buy something without having to register and without that software always be communicating to home servers? Can you still buy a software product and do whatever you wish with it, for as long as you want and without having to pay subscriptions or be forced to upgrade?

Could you create a slipstream ISO using nlite, create a user and then it&#x27;s bypassed?

Every day I am more glad not to be part of the windows ecosystem.

I recently bought a new computer for the first time in ~5 years. I had to boot into windows 11. What a garbage shit show that OS has become. It took nearly an hour for updates, then it constantly dogged me to sign up for free trials of all kinds of crap. It required logging into Microsoft. It made me back things up.<p>At no point was any of this really optional. And when it was they made it difficult to find the option to skip.

Does oobe trick no longer work?

I give it a week before someone patches it.<p>I’m using LTSC. That’s fine. I suspect that’ll never require a Microsoft account.<p>Edit: come on EU. Step up here. Tell them they need to give the users choice.

Fuck Microsoft