Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account
https://www.theverge.com/news/638967/microsoft-windows-11-account-internet-bypass-blockedOpen linkView original on lemm.ee728
Comments190https://www.theverge.com/news/638967/microsoft-windows-11-account-internet-bypass-blockedOpen linkView original on lemm.ee
Are they trying to kill windows on purpose?
The sad thing is they know the large majority of users will comply. Most people put familiarity and convenience above their own privacy and general well-being.
Once valve drops better nvidia support into the kernel, and steamos starts coming pre-loaded on laptops and pre-built desktops it's over for their consumer division.
There's nothing special about SteamOS. Linux has been available as an option from several manufacturers for years.
What we need to see is a major studio pushing for Linux like valve has been doing.
Imagine if call of duty or fortnite had a Linux promotion to have a penguin hat. That would help
There kind of is though. I'm not here to argue it's enough to unseat windows but it is markedly different
From a technical standpoint it's just another linux distro with some nice tweaks for gaming but from a human perspective it has brand recognition, familiarity, a known company behind it. Those things do really matter for adoption. No idea if that'd be anywhere near enough, I'm not inclined to make predictions, but it does have explicit advantages over consumers hearing they can get a laptop with Ubuntu or fedora on it
Yeah I agree. I just don't wanna see more apps made exclusively for the steam deck with SteamOS and winderp. So I feel it's important to highlight it's just another Linux distro.
https://youtu.be/5KYQRk_SIB8 this is what pulled my attention to the matter.
That's very fair! I was concerned by that video too, though I would point out that if I remember right, the games in that video don't work on non-steamdeck devices including if you install steamos on a laptop or desktop
From my understanding of this video. That's because they intentionally locked the game to work on the steam deck.
That's it. That's literally what makes it special. You, me, and half the fediverse probably aren't going to use steam os unless maybe we buy a steam deck.
The fact that there's a multi-billion dollar company throwing money at both it and proton is what makes steam os special. Its what's going to give Linux a unified brand name that every machine can put on their case badge.
Normal people and the companies that sell them computers need that unified brand name. Why on gods green earth, I don't fucking know, but I know that they do. Its how you get them to use shit.
Call of duty is a Microsoft game now.
No it's not, multiplayer games with anticheat that hard-locks you into Windows and productivity software with DRM that hard-locks you into Windows is still a thing, if that were to stop being a thing, then Windows' dominance on the desktop might finally be threatened, but until then, sadly, no.
The fact that Facebook still exists is proof of this.
Also, I will not be surprised if they audaciously disable Win 10 Home edition for security purposes once end of life is reached.
They already said they are going to charge $30/year for patches. They want recurring revenue from ads in 11 or from you paying yearly for 10.
Games. Most of the games I play don't play well with Linux.
I keep a Linux laptop for banking that only connects via ethernet cord while I'm banking. Which is nice, I don't worry about key loggers now.
What games do you play? I've been gaming exclusively on Linux since Windows 7 went EoS, and especially since the Steam Deck came out, I've had very few problems. That said I don't play competitive stuff, which is what tends to have anti-cheat rootkits.
Yeah. Gaming isn't the issue for a long time. Productivity is. Rantmode
Proper CAD for Linux? Nonexistent, even worse, some manufacturers intentionally make sure you can't use a VM either until you massively pay extra.(Looking at you Dassault) FreeCAD is a shitshow (and that is entirely the communities fault) and no professional competitor has shown any incentive - even though there is a increasing market for Linux in some professional capacities. And the current projects to get bottles/wine/etc. to work are maintained by a single guy (bless him) who tried to do it for multiple systems at once and seems to have given up mostly.
Graphic design? While the situation is a little bit better,it's still a shitshow. No, GIMP and Inkscape are not sufficient replacements for Adobe or even Affinity. They are "good enough" for most things,but they are not nearly ready for production use in any professional capacity.
Office? Yeah. Sadly equally bad. I really really really hate Microsoft and Office. But: They are inherently good at what they do. Not because people get used to it - but because they work. I used LibreOffice since back when it was still StarOffice. (And have used Lotus before that) But we as the open source community still rather fight about ribbons (even though they became the standard everywhere) than get LibreCalc halfway production ready or make proper collaborative working possible. Or get a proper fucking search into thunderbird.
And this is the problem: OSS is so damn up its own ass, that it does not see the bigger picture. We can fight about the kernel allowing Rust, having Ribbons, which is the proper workbench in FreeCAD or about packet managers, distro flavours,etc. In the end what will happen is that the other side will be alienated, excuse themselves from further contributions and, and this is even worse, a lot of possible future contributors will also not contribute. And wow, someone was right and can think he (and it's almost always a he) thinks he knows the only truth.
While the actual truth is held by the others. The ones that don't even are bothered by the whole fucking discussing because they make the money, they influence millions and they are the ones setting de facto standards. And yes, that will mean we will need to adapt.
Including adapting market standards. When 95% of the world does a thing "that way", it's simply preposterous to claim "your way" is the right way, even it's for historical reasons. (Easy example: CTRL C / CTRL V)
Same goes for adapting software. If 10% of the development power of Libre Office,GIMP, etc. would have been used to further Wine/Proton to get people to be able to use their industrial standard software we would have seen much much much larger adoption rates,both professionally and for private users.
Because that is literally what happened in gaming. Once Valve basically put massive efforts into allowing Windows games to be played on Linux - and not into developing native Linux games all of a sudden Linux gaming went ahead. Because it is a advantage for your game to work natively and well on a steam deck.
This is even more relevant for production software. If a CEO/CIO has reached a point where his main production software runs on Linux and he has deployed Linux in his company his next software contract for other software will go towards the company who runs better in their environment.
Rant out
(Nothing personal,mate, I just spent the last two days to get fucking CAD to work on Fedora...)
Blender at least has gotten to the point where an indie flick made with it actually won some Oscars and other big awards, so that pretty much put it on the map as a viable Maya or 3DSMax alternative, so there's that.
Yeah, Blender is one of the few points where it works. QGIS is the other.
Do you play exclusively esports games or something? It’s rare I encounter a title that doesn’t work just fine on Linux. It seems I barely need to tweak any settings anymore.
I do play eSports games
companies do things like this when they feel they have the power in the business/customer relationship and there's no regulations to stop them.
I wouldn't say that, more just abusing a monopoly.
I don't know what is going on at Microsoft. I'm starting to think that they are trying to pivot to a completely different business model. In addition to this Windows 11 crap and XBox seemingly being given up on, they appear to be losing their embedded market as well. In the past, if you saw any screen in an industrial setting, there's a good chance that there was the embedded Windows version behind that screen. Lately, all the new products are moving over to Linux.
They are, and have said they are.
Subscriptions are the wave of the future.
What advantage embedded windows gave to a manufacturer for it to be worth paying license fee for? I kinda feel this part is difficult for Microsoft to compete at
It was because developers historically were familiar with Windows and would just default to making a Windows product. You want a POS interface? Your developer is probably going to hand you a .exe and not a .deb. Then your next move is to tell the hardware division to put that .exe into production systems, at which it is too late for the hardware division to argue you just chose the more expensive option without thinking.
This is changing, particularly as many platforms make it trivial to compile for different OSes.
They have done that for years, and every time there is an army of geeks and gamers who look for registry hacks or PowerShell scripts to install Windows anyway. If even those geeks do not want to spend 5 minutes looking for doc on how to install Ubuntu (which is a billion times easier to use than Windows), you can be sure Windows will never die.
Yeah, they probably want to kill it and switch people over to a cloud service with a monthly subscription.
That's a neat trick!
Why the fuck is a Microsoft account so important to Windows that running it without one is considered a "loophole"?
My guess is that's it's easier to neatly package your data up for when they go to sell it.
Because we need your data silly 😊
They want to make money off of services, every service they offer requires a Microsoft account to purchase and use. Everyone that they force to make an account during setup is one step closer to paying for a Microsoft service.
There are obviously tradeoffs (less sales of these versions of windows and some users pushed away from Windows altogether among others), but the motivation is clear.
because microsoft is shifting focus from selling you a product, to selling you as a product
And they need a unique account to track every single click and thing you do on your PC, and the web, and everywhere else to facilitate doing that with greater control and ease.
Its literally what, and for the same reason, google has done for the past decade+
"Hi, I liked XY development tool having a proper GUI on Windows where can I find a non CLI..."
"LEARN TO USE NEOVIM!"
"LEARN TO USE GDB!"
"DO EVERYTHING FROM THE COMMAND LINE!"
Describing the ability to make a local account as a loophole is letting a little too much real intention slip out.
This is only for the Home version of win 11.
But not for the home version of Wubuntu 11.
no that's sketchy in terms of it's ownership. use mint
I didn't know Gentoo was named after a penguin.
Now I want a Chinstrap and a Southern Rockhopper Linux.
Chinstrap Linux haha. It's like Fedora, but for a totally different demographic.
Go for it!
I keep thinking of creating Linux BTW...
GalapagOS
Their intention is clear. I wonder for how long this workaround is going to stay.
You're doing the lord's work
Sure, but when are they going to remove that registry option?
I really hope the whole shift away from American products will convince more software and game developers to provide native support for Linux. I am approaching the fence.
Uh
Who's ready to talk Linux
I'm liking Linux Mint and Kubuntu personally.
Especially Kubuntu for my main desktop PC, Linux Mint for my little clunker PC I use to run my 3D printers.
Same, I just loaded kubuntu on another new system
I am! Looking for a distro that I can use AGI32 on. It already crashes consistently on Windows for large projects and I reckon it'll do worse on wine.
I also use substance painter a lot but I reckon moving into a FOSS alternative will be a good move for that. Wean myself off Adobe dependency. Unless it works in wine but I've been told anything Adobe or Autodesk can't run in wine.
Oh wow I looked up AGi32 and that thing seems like a mess. I feel sorry for you.
I get that it might be hard to migrate some really nastily written software, but... In the year of our lord 2025, it should not be acceptable for any sort of simulation software that requires an expensive paid license, to be 32-bit only.
Agreed but the alternatives are not much better for me. I also use Dialux Evo which is much, much better at rendering but it's extremely Euro centric and you can't easily make a template for Australian standards. There's Relux which I tried using but I didn't want to pay for yet another license just to practice and get better at using it.
Unfortunately, for us Australian lighting designers, there's not a lot of options. It's a gag in the industry where if you hear someone yelling "FUCK!!" out of nowhere, AGI has crashed.
Sadly, steam VR and fusion360 are still tying me to windows. :(
No they don't. Steam VR is native on Linux, and most of fusion 360 can run in wine. Good news for you!
Steam VR runs on Linux natively, doesn't it? I switched to Linux a few weeks ago but haven't tried VR gaming on it yet.
It does, but performance seems a lot laggier than Windows.
I've been using Linux full time for a while now, and only recently installed Windows on a secondary drive, just for those two things.
Before, on Linux, it was a bit of mixed bag. Sometimes it would start up without issue, other times sound wouldn't work, etc.
Using corectl is a must, and make sure you have a stable steam install. (iirc the steam I installed didn't come with half of the 32 bit libs it was expecting). I'm rocking a 7900xtx, so it's not exactly low-end, and half-life alyx was giving me a lot of stutters.
I can imagine the frustration of lag in vr.
I have quite a different experience, can't tell if it is placebo or not, but my vr experience is slightly smoother in Arch Linux compared to my Windows 10.
i play VR via Proton using ALVR (steamvr) or Wivrn
But i havent tried playing Alyx on linux yet
Unfortunately the "horror" that is windows persists almost as much as the horror of Linux. Which is a bunch of fanbois crowing about their distro without any explanation at all. But why do they do this? Because that's how they got into it, and that's how the people that got them into it got into it.
Which fucking distro should I use?
- Well, really it's just preference.
Then I choose arch.
- Uh, wrong try again lol.
Fair enough, Which fucking distro should I use?
- Well, really it's whatever works for you.
Okay, I didn't like the feel of that one.
- Well, you were using the wrong desktop environment.
😐😑😤😠... ...Which fucking desktop environment should I use?
- Well, really it's just preference.
🤬. 🤬🤬, 🤬. 🤬.
- Look clearly you don't know what you're doing just use Ubuntu, or Kubuntu, or Lubuntu, or Xubuntu, or Fubuntu, or Poobuntu, or Schmubuntu. And with cinnamon obvi.
Well how do I know? The site for each one uses the exact same bloviated claims. They're all feature rich, and lightweight, and extended support, etc. Do I have to install them all to find out?
- Yes but that's impossible. So just use mine, it works.
Until it doesn't. Then you need to hit up Linux self help forums, to get help from Linux bros, who are the most detestable group of unhelpful, impatient, and pretentious neckbeards imaginable. "Did you try searching first?" "Just use our discord!" "Just use [my fucking distro!]"
😖🤯👺
FML
I typed 6 words. Are you alright
Lol, thought I was replying to a different comment, my bad 😆
Please accept my apologies 🙏
I'm not unhinged, more or less
Been there. Accepted
To answer your questions though, I suggest the non-Cosmic version of Pop!OS. (and switch to wayland if it's not the default yet- not sure, I've had this install for YEARS) It's a good blend of "just works" and "up to date enough" to run anything, and I recommend steering well clear of Arch. I've been using Linux for a decade and I've always found a way to whoopsie it into a broken state. That's a "me problem" yes, but if I can fudge it up that easily and I have experience using it, I think it's unsuitable to recommend to anyone.
Most people live in a web browser- does it really matter if the desktop environment isn't riced enough or isn't windows-ey enough? That said, it takes actual hackery to make any version of Windows usable these days, so I'll forgive a distro not being "absolutely elite" for someone's preferences. Let's not compare Linux forums to Windows forums, where no-one has ever, I repeat ever received ANY useful advice besides reinstalling their Windows, am I right?
Lol, touche. Unless you include how to "unbreak" every single windows update, but even those resources are growing ever more seldom. Thanks for the explanation. I think I remember hearing about pop during the great steam Linux supportathon a few years back. I held off since the video card support wasn't quite ironed out of something like that and haven't checked back.
Man, Microsoft advertising for Linux Mint YET AGAIN?! They are so gracious.
Why is everyone reccommending linux mint all of a sudden? What happened to ubuntu and fedora?
Ubuntu added telemetry and forced snaps
And Ubuntu Pro popup ads. Linux Mint is, from a compatibility standpoint, Ubuntu without the crap.
So out of curiosity, why Mint over, say Debian? Has Debian added telemetry etc as well?
In addition to what the other guy said, Mint is also more focused on desktop. A bunch of apps are pre-installed that one would expect on a desktop OS. Additionally, the default Mint UI, Cinnamon, feels very familiar to a Windows user. It has a start menu, task bar, tray, etc.
Debian is in the same family, and is more oriented for servers. It is super minimal out of the box, which is perfect when you want it to sit in the other room and perform specific tasks. However, you can install all the same programs, even the Cinnamon UI on Debian.
Really the difference is the out of box experience, but they are otherwise pretty similar.
Debian is a stable distro and therefore tends to have less up-to-date packages.
Ahh so Mint is kept up to date like Ubuntu/Fedora and doesn't have all the telemetry and pop ups for Ubuntu Pro. Thank you!
Ubuntu and Fedora have different “up-to-date”. Ubuntu is patching old code to work / feel modern and Fedora is updating as fast as possible to new Software.
I think Ubuntu is unnecessary doing double work, but I guess they have to, since they have drifted too far from upstream…
I've been using Debian on my desktop for five years now so this information might be a bit outdated, but I have recently installed Mint on my server.
In my experience Mint (and Ubuntu) have been more beginner friendly with installation and initial setup. I remember trying to install Debian on my MacBook which just crashed on bootup whereas Ubuntu worked out of the box. Mint draws from Ubuntu's repositories which are more up to date and has more packages in it. Being able to rely on apt for installing packages has meant an easier user experience. And the last thing is that there's just more information out there for troubleshooting Mint problems than there is for Debian in my experience.
That's what I find. I could be wrong about some of the details
Oh wow that's a great explanation, thank you! I have a bit of experience with Ubuntu and a fraction of that with Debian but absolutely no experience with any other Linux distro, so I appreciate your reply!
I run Ubuntu Server for my home lab and had a RaspberryPi running Debian for a short while as well but it was all CLI so I have almost no experience with the GUI. I was quite surprised to hear about pop ups for Ubuntu Pro.
I personally found setting up Debian for the Pi to be fairly straight forward and about as difficult as converting an old windows laptop into an Ubuntu Server..server, so they might have made Debian a bit easier to get up and running.
That being said I can't recall if I got that particular installation specifically for the Pi so that might have an impact there.
I genuinely appreciate your explanation! :)
It's just a comparable GUI surface.
Mint had had a Debian version for some time
Mint is ubuntu with the icky stuff removed and given an extra layer of polish. Still loving it here.
mint user here, I want my distro devs to work faster on fixing keyboard layouts on wayland.
Corporate distros and all
This forced account shit is infuriating. I’d see students with computers that cannot get to government-provided education sites because they are forced to sign up with a Microsoft account to use their PC, which forced them to setup a child account because of their age and therefore be under a parent account, which means the child account can only use Edge and can only go to whitelisted websites, which blocks some government education sites unless the parent account allows it through which they can’t until the student goes home.
Aren't the students provided computers?
Here students usually get provided computers and then MS accounts are no problem since they just have to logon with their domain account.
lol there's already a fix: run
start ms-cxh:localonlyfrom a CMD line in the installerI'm so glad I finally ditched that shit for good
There, FTFY.
Just one more reason not to use Windows, As if forcing data scrapers down our throat in the guise of AI wasn't enough.
I tell people to make a live usb to test it first.
Can recommend ventoy. Then simply put the iso's from the main distributions with different DE's on the stick
I'm a long time Linux user going back to the linux 1 kernel days. The only reason I still use Windows on my home PC is for gaming. I know Linux has come a long way thanks to many contributors like Valve, but how stable are the AMD video drivers and how well does it work for playing AAA PC games? The last time I built a new PC (2023) I tried running Linux w/ Windows in a KVM virtual machine and direct GPU passthrough, but that was such a nightmare to get set up and working, I just wiped it and installed Windows 11. I game on it and run Hyper-V VMs for Linux, which works quite well actually but feels like a sin.
I have a very extensive steam, gog, and battle.net library with all kinda of games from wolfenstein 3D to Baulders Gate 3. The only game I haven't been able to run is Ground Control 2, but that doesn't work on windows 10 (possible a USB device issue). Unless you play a game with an anti cheat that explicitly deny Linux (the only one I know off the top of my head that does that is Fortnite) you are most likely good to go. I'm quite a performance/fps snobb, and I haven't found any game that runs worse on Linux either.
I play the DMZ mode of Call of Duty a lot. And Cyberpunk 2077. Recently started playing Reka. Heard of any issues with those?
Looks like Warzone is one of the unfortunate ones, the kernel level anti cheat currently stops it from working on Linux.
Reka (added to my wishlist 😄) seems to run well. If it will run straight out the box or not seems to be a little hit and miss. You can check any troubleshooting steps on protondb. This shows Linux isn't quite at the "it just works" stage. But for this title if you do run into an issue it seems like an easy fix.
Cyberpunk runs really well. I haven't had to tweak anything for my install.
Thanks! I appreciate the info. protondb bookmarked!
Does the dualboot of Mint cause any issues for Windows? I only tested it very briefly on somebody elses machines where I needed to wipe windows and install Linux
What about Manjaro?
What about EndeavourOS?
What about Arch?
Will people just stop using windows already. I get for work but if you just waiting on that one game then fuck off it's not worth it. I gave up some of my favorite games because it wasn't worth using Windows
Proton is amazing though. I got Lego LotR working on my steam deck by installing some DirectX 9 dependency to fix a graphical glitch with the game. Runs like a dream.
Can I run multi-monitor high refresh rates without the desktop slugging? Last time I seriously tried switching to Linux, this seemingly simple setup in 2024 was too much for it to handle.
Sure, as long as you run a wayland capable DE. Like GNOME or KDE. It's still experimental in linux mint afaik. You might have a few problems if you have an NVIDIA card (no proper wayland support) or HDMI cables (limited to 144 fps because of copyright issues iirc).
I have Nvidia yeah and quickly learnt that I wasn't going to get it working smoothly and went back to Windows. If I manage to get a RRP 9070XT, then I will try Linux again.
I hate the "stop using windows" comments, when it's quite impossible to have the same experience without specific hardware and setups.
The nvidia support is getting better, but yeah they're years late compared to AMD which basically has better drivers on linux than windows.
It's not the fault of the creators of an operating system that Nvidia refuses to write comparable drivers. Nvidia are the only ones with the technical knowledge of the GPU's internals that is necessary to write the 100% functional driver. Open-source Nouveau drivers exist but are less functional because of this, its programmers have to try to reverse-engineer and do a lot of guesswork and testing, and for free.
Basically: If you value FOSS software at all, buy from manufacturers that are friendlier to FOSS software, or you may unknowingly lock yourself out of it.
Edit: Buying newer (especially of Nvidia) is probably a bad idea if you intend to run Linux. Older cards have had more time for them to fix the inevitable bugs. I run a GTX980Ti 😅 with the closed-source drivers on an Arch-based system and I'm honestly surprised a video driver update hasn't seriously broken anything yet.
Never said it was the fault of the creators, I love the idea of Linux and wish it was the mainstream desktop OS, then none of these issues would really exist. I only have issue with people pretending it's so simple to change to it from Windows, which is just almost never true.
I have an Nvidia card because it was the best option for me at the time I bought it, Valve's Proton hadn't matured enough for Linux to even be considered for gaming at that time (other Linux quirks aside). As much as I support FOSS, I love playing a variety of games with friends and that just wasn't going to be feasible with Linux 5-6 years ago. I wasn't going to dual-boot when I would end up spending most of my time in Windows anyway and the rest of my time troubleshooting Linux.
Now AMD has released a good card, Proton is really good and Linux has progressed further to where I can seriously consider it. With Windows 10 support ending, I am very likely to jump ship.
Sorry, I was not trying to put words in your mouth. I just usually hear, "Linux not good for me because it doesn't support my setup well enough" when it should be "Linux not good for me because the manufacturers of my hardware don't support Linux well enough". Trying to put blame where it belongs in hopes of raising awareness to both users and manufacturers.
I also mistakenly thought you mentioned a newer Nvidia card when you are considering AMD. 🤦♂️ Good luck in your computing future!
I run 2x 1440p monitors at 165hz and 144hz fine
I don't know about high refresh rates, but multiple 4k screens was a pain point in 2023 and it's a complete non-issue in 2025.
For people with "that one game" there is a middle ground. Mine is Destiny 2 and they use a version of easy anticheat that refuses to run on Linux. My solution was to buy a $150 used Dell on eBay, a $180 GPU to be able to output to my 4 high-res displays, and install Debian + moonlight on it. I moved my gaming PC downstairs and a combination of wake-on-lan + sunshine means that I can game at functionally native performance, streaming from the basement. In my setup, windows only exists to play games on.
The added bonus here is now I can also stream games to my phone, or other
thin clientsin the house, saving me upgrade costs if I want to play something in the living room or upstairs. All you need is the bare minimum for native-framerate, native-res decoding, which you can find in just about anything made in the last 5-10 years.I loved destiny 2 but I gave it up. Fuck Bungie because someone got it to work and they banned them
did you export your skype data?
Even MORE reason not to upgrade!
But still runs fine in a VM (where it belongs to) on Linux on a system without TPM, right?
No, your guest VM still requires TPM enabled
Guest VM? Nested VM? Does the VM or the host system need TPM?
The guest VM requires TPM to install Windows 11.
It depends on your hypervisor platform. Some platforms can enable vTPM (emulated TPM) without host hardware support, like KVM with swtpm.
Hyper-V can do passthrough TPM or emulate vTPM but still require the host to have hardware TPM enabled to do so.
They give me more and more reasons to stay on W10 until I give up games and move to Linux permanently.
I'll miss my TCMD scripting, though. But besides that and gaming, most of what I do nowadays is cross-platform.
What games keep you on Windows? Besides a few anticheat-enabled ones which choose not to support it, basically everything works fine. I game (and work in gamedev!) 100% on Linux.
My vr driving Sim rig just works in windows, the most I've ever had to do is map my shifter in game. Steamvr, hardware drivers, the actual games, it all just works without doing anything. Plug and play. I'm sure I can get it all working in Linux, eventually. I was(trying to) gaming on Ubuntu 10.04 with wine. I was first batch steamdeck and the amount of progress with gaming I've seen thanks to valve and proton means I'll be coming back. But I'm just waiting for steamOS to be open release. But I am a KDE head so honestly I'll end up whatever distro that does proton and KDE by the end of this year.
Come on in, the water is fine. The latest version of Ubuntu is like 24, so things have changed a lot, and for the better.
Get yourself a Kubuntu image, and give it a try.
Install bazzite. Done.
Over like half of the games I play with friends just do not work Linux because of anti-cheat. I hate it. I also can't use it for work or studies since I need access to a good CAD that just works. These 2 things and a proper Adrenaline software from AMD is all I need to fully switch to Linux. I do have a dual-boot Windows/Linux PC at home, but honestly, I can barely use Linux most of the time.
Ouch, that sucks yeah. Guess I got lucky with the games my friends like to play. Only one is I guess Valorant, but I don't engage with that one anyways. Guess you're stuck on the dual boot until devs of these games start ticking the Proton support box :P
Why would you give up games to move to Linux? Been enjoying Cyberpunk and Guild Wars lately, and many games before that the last year. Honestly, at this point I don't even check if games work with Linux, I just assume they do unless proven otherwise.
Check out Proton DB. Gives reports on how well things run. Anything Gold or higher is going to be a non-concern to play.
Same here.
Game performance on Linux isn't always the best. So I'll keep a Win10 around.
Are Linux ports of games so hard to do? Genuine question. I am not a games dev.
My personal opinion is that Windows is an easier target because all Windows machines are consistent in their underlying interface with the user's hardware. Same idea with MacOS. You know what display manager and graphics library to target, and what packaging format to target.
Then, there's Linux, which can be one of any number of distributions with varying software stacks, packaging formats, etc. It's not that Linux gaming is radically difficult to support, it's just much less standardized. This makes it a lot more work for a much smaller demographic. The Vulkan graphics API has made some of the software issues much less of a problem, but you still have to contend with things like different display managers and stuff like packaging differences between distributions.
Makes sense. Would packaging like Flatpak or AppImage be an option? Or just make sure it runs with Wine? Probably all not that straightforward.
I think the problem with packaging isn't so much that there aren't good options. Some people don't like Flatpak. Some people don't like snaps. Maybe AppImage would be a good option. But these are all choices that can potentially fragment the target demographic even further, which reduces the value returned for the time invested in supporting it. Just my opinion, certainly not an expert.
Wine is a great solution for windows-only things. The great thing about gaming, though, is that many of them are using languages like C++ which have full support on Linux systems natively. If you then have your graphics running through Vulkan, that also works across platforms. So, in my opinion, Wine shouldn't be something we continue to need for gaming. Not saying Wine won't be used or won't continue to be useful for gaming, just that it doesn't have to be the primary path to support Linux.
Making sure they run well with Wine is probably what many game devs are dong who specifically want to support Linux. Right now the vast majority of games run out of the box on Wine, so there probably isn't much a dev has to do if they want to make sure it runs great.
TCMD scripting? what kind?
I have just recently rediscovered DoubleCommander. it's different at places, but some of them makes it better. maybe it's compatible with your scripts
LibreOffice better step up their games and make their office suites better. Outside of very niche and specialized applications like CAD or video editor, the average Joe will just need a good office suite to do stuff.
Most people just use the online office 365 thing.
What issues did you have with LibreOffice? I didn't spot any problems when I used it
oh LibreOffice works great for me in general. Only for some documents with macros that were created in MS Office, I have problems running them. Eg: I once received a MS Word document that has some preprogrammed drop down list - so you click to extend the list and choose your items. The document opens fine, but I couldnt get the drop down feature to work. For Excel, documents with lots of VBA codes, I need to go in and do some manual changes.
In general, for 99% of the tasks, LibreOffice is fine. But it is that 1% which makes me still open up my Windows VM for MS Office.
After their shenanigan with subscription only models, we still see MS Office being used a lot. It shows how strong MS grips on the Office area is.
You are correct that 365 is used for most people. I used to use it too..For me, I prefer to be able to access stuff whenever I want. I live in an area with very shitty internet (both Wifi and 4G). Once, a client and I had to wait 5 minutes because Office Online takes too long to load up a spreadsheet. Offline for me is just a peace of mind.
Depends on what you do with it. In accountancy we and most of our clients work with Microsoft Office desktop. Also things like templates based on CRM work better with actual Word.
Edit: Libreoffice is also a bit annoying since the settings aren't in the same layout so helping others becomes harder. Not sure if they implemented it since I am not that well versed with it as with Excel, but I belief they don't have a PowerQuery alternative?
Funny how corporations think taking away consumers freedom and privacy is a good idea.
Have fun losing customers.
Its a good idea for their shareholders, who don't think beyond the next quater. Pretty sure most of them don't have object permanence.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
-Benito Mussolini, 1932
You can still skip it with MicroWin and also Rufus. I've tested it just recently.
Did you try that with the latest beta build?
No with the latest ISO from windows 24H2 I believe
We no longer own our products. We just pay to use it until they decide you can no longer use their service. What happens if they mysteriously shut down your account without warning?
That is what happened to a guy and he had to get court involved and then he found out his account was flagged for CP by their algorithm because he had a video of his 19 year old ex. False bans do happen. I couldn't find that story again sadly to share.
Also, make sure you always have back up turned off or have one drive not installed on your phone. If you're a parent, be careful what photos you take of your children because if those get backed up to cloud, their AI will kill your account because it can't tell between CP and normal family photos.
I actually want to own our products than make accounts to use.
This is a popular saying but its not as clear cut. You have choice. You can own the products you use or buy. So why don't you?
Yes, the software we used yesterday is no longer a one time purchase today. However, you still own the software you bought yesterday and you have choice to buy new software which you will own or you can subscribe to a service providing the updated version of the new software. Example:
I can still use a purchased copy of Adobe Lightoom from 2010.
I can buy a new license for Affinity Photo today and use it forever.
I can pay to use Lightroom as a service.
Imo, the only price you pay is the trek you take into unfamiliarity brought on by using new software.
Nothing's stopping you from nuking your Windows install and installing some Linux distro though, at least on a normal PC. Surface products tend to be more locked to Windows though. I haven't ran Windows as a main OS in years and don't plan on going back, and Windows has gotten so user-hostile lately that I don't even trust it enough to dual-boot it anymore, LTSC included.
(so far LTSC has dodged most of MS' worst atrocities but it's only a matter of time before that version starts getting compromised in some way too, so I don't trust Windows outside of a VM, period, anymore, at least if I virtualize it, whatever stunts it may pull are isolated to that VM and won't affect the host generally)
This happens on the Google side of the fence as well - this article immediately came to mind.
I'm glad I started self hosting so I still have a "cloud" convenience while still owning all my data and being the sole person responsible for it.
Is it possible to skip account creation by installing while not connected to the internet?
Nope, you need an internet connection to get past initial setup. Unless you use pro, there you can select to domain join computer instead and it'll let you create a local account
You are wrong for now, it is still possible.
This will not work if you're already connected to a wifi. BypassNRO sets a registry flag, so it's only a matter of time till they patch it out, but it works for now.
Edit: Rufus also allows the creation of a local user when making the installation USB, skipping the entire setup process.
this does not work for Windows HOME edition
Yes it does, a client needed this documentation and I've tested it extensively. The only exception is when S-Mode is enabled.
Ok, so setup a DC (in a VM on your linux laptop), install Win11 joined to that domain, create a local user, then leave the domain & destroy the VM...?
Or install Linux 👍🏻
You don't have to join a domain, it just skips the Microsoft account login and goes to create a local account
That's what they're disabling now
Any gamers looking to switch, I've had a good experience with Bazzite.
Let's install Windows 10 for protest
Or linux.
I do have Linux installed to all my PCs in my house. Now I need a Windows that doesn't require MS account ;)
Steam OS 3.8 ... Any moment now 😁
Every time I hear about Microsoft it makes me wanna take a shit
Pavlov Reaction?
Ah sweet vindication for getting my gaming PC and daily driver laptop on Linux
Yet another reason to not use windows 11.
Chiming in as well with a Linux distro: peppermint , debian based. If you want the horrors to persist but kind of limited check out windows ameliorated. https://ameliorated.io/
Meh... Yet another thing that everyone will just accept as a new norm. :c
How does this work nowadays when you buy a PC from a store?
Does it come with Windows already installed?
And if so, with what account?
Installed yes, but the OOBE that runs (assuming the OEM didn't fuck it up) is more or less the same as a retail install: you have to add the account, untick the 300 'yes, please spy on me' boxes, and tell it that you do not want office 14 times.
Remember clippy on word 2000? That was annoying.
Looks like I’ll finally be migrating my final workstation off of Windows 11.
I mean, I still have a while. The Dell T7910 still meets all of the Windows 11 Workstation 24H2 requirements, so Rufus only needs to modify that one part of the installer. And once I have Windows installed, I can do upgrades over Windows Update.
But once the machine gets too old for that…
At least OpenSUSE meets most of my needs.
Tried Pop PS recently. Night and day difference.
Ok, so this solidifies my desire to never buy a Windows PC/laptop and why my switch to Mac was a good choice a few years ago. However Mac gaming is nowhere near where it should be right now and I was thinking about getting a cheap Windows laptop for games that aren't available on Mac.
I remember a push a few years ago to get some linux distros pre-installed on some OEM hardware but I didn't hear much of anything past the hype. Anyone have any good OEM brands that have linux installed instead of Windows and are relatively affordable?
Framework laptops can come with optionally no OS if you choose, and I can attest to their build quality being quite good.
I know there are some brands that will have Linux pre-installed, but I don't know enough about them to comment.
It's funny that with how enclosed the Apple ecosystem is, even they don't force you to create an Apple account to use macOS.
I have heard about identity provider software on Linux for self hosting.
Is that a possibility for family members' win11 accounts too, when they run into that problem in the future? Or is a M$ account the only way then?
One or all of em.
To be far this command was only needed for win 11 Home. Pro did not need a command as the option is available through normal prompts windows gives you.
I think that option was removed even on Pro a pretty long time ago, no? At least the last couple of times I installed W11 Pro the graphical option was nowhere to be found. It used to be available easily enough that anyone could choose it if they didn't blindly click Next, then it got more and more hidden away and now I'm 99% sure you need the command unless you prep the ISO using Rufus and its function to create a local account for you. On that note, I wonder if this will affect the Rufus method too..
It is under sign in option when you get to it then choose domain join. This get you to create a local account. Just did this to 5 new computers last week.
And it still tries to convince you to go MS account with it's, "even better, create a Microsoft account" link that's conveniently located where the Next button should be.
All I know is i been doing this for 6 months upgrading companies from win 10 to 11. I am sure you're not doing something wrong.
Upgrades are a different process than a brand new install. Going from 10 to 11 on a Pro is an easy process. Long, as in a couple hours, but easy. The post is talking about brand new installs (the OOTB experience).
The last 5 msi laptop OOTB have been able to create local accounts as a mean to join to domain. The 4 Dell i did the week before was able to do the same.
Yes. Windows Pro. They're talking about Home OOTB. And in pro, even though you still can (for now), they keep nagging you about the ms account.
"Sucking off Bill Gates is bad, but Linux doesn't support video games"
Bill Gates doesn't run Microsoft anymore. He's not the CEO and largely not responsible for the change in their business model.
Also, I game on Linux more than I do on windows (though I do have a partition in my drive to run windows for games I couldn't get working on steam OS/ Bazzite. It's literally 4 games out of over 100.
I'm making fun of the juxtaposition of people that express frustration/animosity for Windows with the need to stay on Windows in order to consume cutting edge video games.
It gets to be comical. Something about the "height" difference. Like you have the giant "They're taking away my ownership of my data and my very computer!" standing next to little old "But I like my raytracing."
"My data is being exposed in the name of corporate AI!" next to "But I can't play games with anticheat with my friends." It's funny. I'm going to laugh.
I switched to Ubuntu a few months ago, and all my Steam games work just fine. Never looking back.