No account? No Windows 11 for you, says Microsoft
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/07/windows_11_local_account_loophole/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml313
Comments113https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/07/windows_11_local_account_loophole/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml
Why would a OS need an online account?
We truly live in the stupidest timeline.
I use Lemmy and Steam games, someone please recommend a Linux OS and a browser to end this stupid shit for me.
Went this route a few months ago. The switch was incredibly easy.
I'd like to add that librewolf is a great privacy focused browser based on Firefox.
Pop!_OS, PikaOS, CachyOS, and Bazzite are the top gaming distros right now.
I recommend Pop! if you have Nvidia cards. If you have AMD, any of them will work.
PikaOS or Bazzite with the KDE Plasma desktop are going to be closest to Windows 10 in terms of how you use them.
Pop! has a super different UI, almost Mac-like. But it's based on Ubuntu, the most-used distro. Which means that if anything goes wrong you can search "[problem] Ubuntu" and get hundreds of solution pages.
CachyOS is based on Arch, which is the big, scawy Linux that all the nerds say they use. It's easier to break than the other ones, and won't officially offer some of the apps that something Debian/Ubuntu based might have. I would recommend it when you're looking to get a bit more technical.
That said, I haven't broken my install yet and CachyOS is like the fastest OS available right now. Serious FPS gains for a LOT of games compared to Windows, and even other Linux distros. I also have not had to sit and troubleshoot it over anything. I was shocked at how smooth it was for an Arch system.
So, there's not really a bad choice in those 4. I'd recommend Pop! if you never want to have to tinker, Pika or Bazzite if you want to feel like you're still using Windows, and Cachy when you feel comfortable taking some training wheels off (and that could be right now!).
For browsers, try LibreWolf. It's a locked-down version of Firefox. Or just use Firefox. It ain't perfect, but then again it ain't Chrome.
PopOS vote from me. Very easy to get set up, especially if you have an Nvidia card. Flatpak is integrated to their store, it just works out of the box.
I've been on PopOs for over 7 years and its been steady as a rock! I could never go back to windows.
oh hey nice I haven been on Mint for awhile and my Nvidia card gives me no end of trouble
Linux Mint. If my 85-year-old dad can get used to it after over 30 years of Windows, you’ll be fine.
/edit Also Firefox comes with pretty much every Linux distribution, but if you need something Chromium-based, I’m partial to Vivaldi.
https://yearofthelinuxdesktop.net/
According to the flowchart there, cachyOS or bazzite, also some other tools and recommendations, good luck!
Nobara and pikaOS also both good options. I use CachyOs on my main PC and nobara on my htpc and have had a very pleasant time with the distros and their communities. Just gotta leave windows at the door and be open to learning a new way of doing things. Best of luck OP
and browser I love zen browser and have Vivaldi as my chromium browser of choice when some niche task needs it
I went from Nobara to Bazzite, Nobara worked but felt super janky, Bazzite is on another planet in terms of polish.
Bazzite is awesome I just don't like immutable distros personally. I like to tinker more than they allow. Nobara works great for my htpc but I think if I had to switch from CachyOs on my gaming PC I'd go pikaOS
I keep reading this, but it's never clear what people mean. I still haven't found anything I'm not allowed to tinker with, it's just done differently.
CachyOS has recently stopped playing H264 videos on some websites after a system update.(on Librewolf and other browsers too). Installing ffmpeg4.4 will fix this.
Lol, CAD on Linux at 90% of what is available on Windows? That's straight out dishonest.
Source: CAD user on Linux
bazzite and librewolf
CachyOS could be great! If not, Zorin and Mint are great.
Stop giving new people choices! (Quasi facetious)
Yeah you gotta stay stuck in a duopoly of shitty multibilion companies, like God intended! Lol
God intended for a monopoly, hence there must be an armageddon between Apple and Google
LInux mint or bazzite, I'd take a look at both, and firefox with ublock origin
Mint is very similar to a Windows feel
Just wish Cinnamon looked a bit better.
Sure, but the cool thing about Linux is that you can pick the gui. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_window_managers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_Window_System_desktop_environments
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_display_servers#Wayland
TBH I'm fine with XFCE. It looks reasonably modern but is lightweight and uncomplicated. Takes recolors well, too. Never had any problems with it.
Yeah, but system tray icons don't really behave consistently on Xfce.
Huh. I've not had that experience. Then again, I don't have a ton of tray icons on my Mint install, mostly just Steam, Telegram, and occasionally Discord.
I did have my panel set up vertical, with the system tray icons in two columns. Typically there were two groups (for some reason) stacked on top of eachother and if the top one had an odd number of icons then there was a conspicuous gap.
Now I use Kubuntu, though I miss the GNOME text editor (I installed it, but with GNOME being GNOME it wasn't themeable, and I can't find the Cinnamon or Xfce fork in the repositories).
KDE is also similar enough but actually looks good, and is a more complete and coherent experience.
I also don't think "looks similar" is actually good if you're switching. Because it will be similar enough to be confusing when it then behaves differently, and it's IMO easier to learn something that's obviously (slightly) different than trying to just learn different behavior.
Bazzite and Librewolf
I've had a good experience with Bazzite. It worked out of the box for steam, and the "bazaar" app store built into it had everything I needed. Heroic is in there and good for handling PC games from other stores. Use Proton+ to get the latest Proton GE if you run into any windows game compatibility issues and it may solve them.
If you have a Nvidia card, I've found mint and neon to be really poor performing. Kubuntu and Q4 have been amathiugh, I wouldn't use Q4os unless you have low end hardware though.
That being said mint is just the best os in the sphere for performance and usability, if it runs well for you that would be awesome.
Libre wolf is an amazing Firefox branch, runs well, super private, good overall, though in my opinion it fails to perform well on beefy websites with alot of visual goodies (like sketch sketchfab and other 3d model websites.) Best to have both Firefox and Libre Wolf.
On a side note some fun apps to use on Linux I found: qdirstat (winderstat replacement.) Portmaster (take control of what can access your pc via the internet, also has built in dns, a wonderful user interface, its just amazing.) Vencord (yeah I know discord sucks, but its almost impossible to get away from. Seriously I've tried to get my friends to use matrix, no Bueno.)
Also, Plasma is the greatest thing ever. My god is it good.
You could literally go into any "technology" post and there will be dozens
Lol too late. I already moved to Linux and love it.
I've been very happy with no windows on my computers for over 15 years now.
About the same for me. Genuinely happy and cant understand why more people dont just install it. Its soo easy these days.
Joke's on them. I'm not about to use Windows 11 anyway
Had Win 11 on my laptop (came with it) swapped to Mint 2 days ago. First Linux device. I cannot express how much faster it loads shit now.
Yeahhh, I'm going with Linux when I get my warrantied laptop back after some research on drivers.
Lol.
If I ever use windows again. It'll be a cracked version.
You don't need to "crack" anything. Massgrave can activate any version of windows through the official process.
It technically probably breaks the EULA but no one gives a shit (including MS).
"As far as Redmond is concerned, this is all for the user's own good. " What a joke!
Well, Adobe is not "household" software. :-)
But there are a lot of other software, that people have a hard time letting go of. Like Affinity, Scrivener, certain games, a lot of small programs/apps, like FastStone apps (Image viewer and more), AllMyNotes, ActionOutline, Duplicate cleaner 5, EZ CD Audio Converter and more...
it is when everyone pirates it
Which everyone doesn't do. By your definition, every software is household. Come on, please relate to this with common sense.
It may be me being a millenial, but I'm used to Photoshop being widely pirated. It used to be Adobe's strategy to let people do that because that meant more people who knew how to use it and therefore more business sales.
No offense but with the number of random processes running on any given machine, I am in no way gonna trust a mission critical app to work right from a pirate site and not load something extra like a keylogger. Hell it barely works right in a fully legal install…
Also, I used to strongly advocate switching off Creative Cloud to Affinity to own the software but I have this horrible feeling that they may be going either subscription or AI slop or both on the 30th and you can no longer buy version 2.
(And I say that as a long-time Adobe stockholder from back before they went pure evil with Creative Cloud.)
No need to convince me, I quit using Adobe before they even introduced Creative Cloud.
I'm just explaining what I see.
I used a pirated version of PS too - many years ago. I worked with multimedia, so there was a reason. Most regular people don't even know how to use PS... They are better of with just a simple tool to do what they need, like cropping adjusting size, levels, colors and and the most basic things.
Yeah, again, my opinion may be influenced by my age, once upon a time computer users were, on average, skilled enough to do simple stuff in PS.
That was when most users were drawn to computers out of a desire to learn, play and use it. Now, a lot of users are forced to use computers. That doesn't make them great at it.
@Damage
@Core_of_Arden
And skilled enough to pirate. I think most users now don't have any idea how to access pirated material.
I always recommend Loreforge as a replacement for Scrivener. I had no problem swapping once I spent a little time in Loreforge. It's even available on Windows so they can try it ahead of time.
It's a good alternative, but it's subscription based, and that's a no go. Thanks for telling me about it though.
Huh? I've never paid anything for it.
Edit: Ohhh, I see. They've added a subscription for some extra stuff. The full features of the program are entirely available in the free version. I've never pushed up against a paywall as far as I can tell.
LOL. Never heard of any of them.
My guess is, that you haven't heard of a lot of apps or games, that a lot of people enjoy using... But it's really of little consequence to the debate here, what you have heard of. :-)
AutoCAD
It's the reason I feel stuck too.
Not at all comparable.
source: I use it.
Once I retire and no longer need Windows for work I am switching full time to Linux.
Kind of what I was thinking too.
Ok fine Linux it is. As a person who mostly uses a computer for 3D modeling, drafting and invoicing.... what are my options?
What software do you use?
I worked with 3D for decades and Blender replaced almost everything. The performance is actually better on Linux. I personally use Linux mint, but regarding software it barely matters what distro you use nowadays.
But support, compatibility, ease of use can vary a lot. I haven't used another distro for many years so I can't say much.
If you rely on autodesk and adobe stuff you will probably suffer. But personally I would say it's deserved because there are not a lot of companies more evil than them. The sooner you start trying alternatives the better.
Invoicing I just used inkscape but it's not great. Be prepared to make some sacrifices, but it's all worthy to get rid of microsoft.
How is Inkscape used for invoicing? You cretate the invoice as vector graphic template and just replace the text?
I don't ever do any invoicing myself, so I am not clear on the requirements here. But a template in LibreOffice Draw could perhaps work for this purpose? There might be some way to programtically replace the fields, and if you store client and project details in a database it should eventually be a matter of choosing which client to bill for which project and click "Go!". I would aim for such a self-made setup to be independent on any license-ridden software. But again, I don't do this, so I might have missed some important part of the puzzle.
Yeah, I don't know. I know that there are softwares specific for invoicing but I've never used one, nor did I use to send too many invoices. Most of the time I was an employee, doing some other freelances, so it wasn't too much to keep track.
I used Inkscape because I was more used to it, working with graphics most of my life. LibreOffice is probably easier. But I don't know how that's supposed to be done with proprietary softwares either.
Hopefully someone with more experience on this can help him.
alternativeto.net
More people will switch to Linux
i used to think this too; but seeing tech literacy rate drop since the widespread adoption of smartphones makes me wonder if people will go with whatever works well enough and for the least about of effort.
and linux still takes effort.
This has always been the case. People want something that just works right out of the box, and familiarity will keep a lot of people from considering anything else.
I've been talking for a long time now with a friend of mine about how sick we are of Windows, and more recently about how I'm planning on installing Linux on a spare HDD I have before making the commitment to getting rid of Windows entirely, and he's decided to go to 11 despite hating it because he's afraid of trying something new and having to learn a new system.
And it's not just a computer thing. People can and will hurt themselves by repeating the same mistakes because it's the familiar habit and doing something new - even if it's for your own good - is scarier. Been there, done that, plenty of times.
i know too many people who are hurting themselves because they genuinely can't afford iphones or macbooks; but they keep borrowing money to buy another one each time something happens to their current one and only because "it just works"
No. More people will just keep using Windows 10.
Nah most people will just create an account. They literally have no idea what they are doing.
Your statement doesn't contradict OP's
Deal! (i'm swithing to Linux)
Have fun! It's a learning curve, but a very accomplishable learning curve, and at the end you get to say that you don't use microsoft
It's just so much better than Windows in every way.
There needs to be some sort of EU directive that once a hardware device sells enough units they MUST provide the equivalent software features and functions available on windows for Linux, and not just a plain driver with no config options.
Imagine being able to buy hardware knowing you can configure it in Linux without relying on some unsupported thing made by the community.
Great strategy to force users have a bad experience while your platform is in decline to a free and user friendly alternative. Very smart of MS, as per usual.
Oh nooooo whatever will I do now
Run LTSC /w MAS to activate it while that's still an option as that and the rest of the Enterprise/IoT SKUs of both Win10 and Win11 still let you make local accounts, or move to Linux if you can and you're not locked into Windows by anything.
I think Enterprise versions don't require it either.
IoT and LTSC are Enterprise versions.
Sure but they are both special versions, I'm just taking about regular Windows
Good riddance
* if you purchase the budget version.
As in you can still get past this if you purchases windows professional instead of home?
Yep, just select join to a domain in the bottom left when it asks for your Microsoft account.
Good to know. Thanks!
And last I checked (but it’s been a few years) you could easily buy a “salvage” SN on eBay for like $15.
If no workaround can be found, I may finally be able to get Mrs. Erinaceus switched to Linux...
11 IoT Enterprise LTSC, and be free from this and other M$ bullshit.
I am waiting for an official SteamOS Desktop release. If I am switching to Linux, I would prefer a gaming-focused PC distro that has the support of an 800lb gorilla.
If I have to migrate early, say, at the start of a 2nd American Civil War, I will probably use CachyOS. I don't expect Microsoft to be neutral or to work for the good guys.
The meat of the work Valve did was with the compatibility layer, not SteamOS itself. This means you can choose any distro you're comfortable with and games will work as well as they do in SteamOS. I recommend Bazzite.
I ran steamos for a few months on my gaming PC.... You can download the iso and run it on just about any hardware (so long as it's team red).
Cachyos is better
The immutable nature of steamos made sure i wouldn't ever be able to fuck it up, but it also means you cant really sudo anything, plus it's missing basic PC functionality like printer drivers etc.
For anyone else on the fence, you don't need to wait. Lots of distros support gaming right out the box. I switched my gaming desktop (nvidia card) to Pop_OS!, installed Steam, and it just works.
What factors lead you to select Cachy?
More performance, which would be appreciated. I use local AI for roleplay, shaving off a couple minutes from a response would be nice.
Aside from that, KDE Plasma might let me tweak my experience better than what Mint allowed. Being nearly a complete newcomer to Linux, I don't really know what distro actually suits me. That is why I would prefer an official SteamOS Desktop, since that would probably have enough casual and power to be useful for me. I am pretty much just going to try Cachy and see how I feel.
🤷♂️
That's fine by me.
Another big reason to switch to GNU/Linux.
I only use windows for gaming. If Windows somehow fucks it up so much that I can play the majority of games in Linux on Steam, then I no longer have a use for them. I don't use windows for work, and all of my normal computer use cases Linux is fully capable of, I'll basically be forced over to Ubunutu or something, with a cracked Win11 VM for new games that don't have linux releases.
I suppose linux graphic drivers and performance are still an issue, but that will surely only get better, especially as the windows desktop segment of GPU sales dries up.
I switched 5 weeks ago and it's honestly in a much better state than I thought. I haven't felt the need to use Windows in those 5 weeks. It feels like I'm back in 90s with full control of my computer again.
If you stay with AMD graphics and avoid highly competitive games that require kernel level anti cheat Linux for gaming works just fine. Especially with steam. But also epic games etc run pretty well.
The great windows 10 shutdown is coming in a couple of weeks and I still haven't upgraded my wife's laptop! The main holdup is backing up, it turns out that hibernation need to be disabled in Windows 10 to do a proper backup, otherwise there is some sort of encryption on the backup. I wasted 2 days on this already copying 500GB just in case upgrade fails.
Upgrading to mint of course!
If you do end up needing some time, check out 0patch. They're continuing security updates for Windows 10 and you can do a one month trial for free.
There is no "Windows 10 shutdown". The only thing that was supposed to happen is end of free security updates, but Microsoft already decided to give them for free to everyone.
Source?
It's free in the EU for an extra year, but afaik they're requiring that you have an account signed in on Windows.
Otherwise apparently you will be able to a year's support via 1000 points on the Microsoft rewards website.
OOBE doesn't sounds too much OOBE to me...
Out Of Bullcrap Experience
Ok
*install windows not use windows; regular local accounts can still be created afterwords.
gets out iPhone with forced crApple account: "MICROSOFT SUX"