Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything

Yesterday when I booted my windows 10 desktop PC I got a bunch of popups (Win32 MessageBox) about errors in some O365 AI dll files.

Turns out some MS AI software was silently installed on my PC in late may.

I do not have MS Office or anything that should require any AI software.

Personally I'm on linux full time now, which has its own issues but enshittification by Microsoft is not one of them.

And it's even more scary that MS uses dark patterns to trick older non-technical users into enabling MS online accounts. When the bitlocker activation automatically happens during tricking the user into going from a local account to online account it is without the user's consent or real participation. They don't print out a copy of the key or move it to a usb drive becuase they aren't aware their drives are being encrypted. And afterwards they can't set up recovery keys because the computer itself only shows the blue aka.ms screen. It's effectively dead until they follow the demands.

This is not theoretical, it actually happened to my mother on the local account Win 11 computer I set up for her sewing applications. I had to drive across town in order to figure it out since the weird URL I'd never heard of (aka.ms) and demand for pasting private info sounded so much like ransomware. And in fact, it was effectively ransomware, it was just demanding online activity rather than money.

https://cybernews.com/security/researcher-releases-bitlocker...

Depends. The average user would be more afraid if its not backed up online.

I call this "The Pawn Shop Threat Model" ;)

And, IME it is likely to happen.

What it should definitely not happen is to do this behind scenes and store recovery codes on a microsoft account. Why those codes have to be stored on their servers?

A screen should display the recovery codes and instruct the user to print them and keep them in a safe place in case of requiring them. I should be able to recover my data completely offline. End of the story.

To me that's the main thing about disk encryption, it's to stop a nasty rootkit from being installed trivially as much as it is about stopping the guy at the pawn shop from getting your tax info. Whether you're on macos, linux, or windows, it's really quite easy to fully compromise a machine if you have hands on it.

Everyone has different security needs. But (maybe it's different on Windows), what's hard about popping the disk to another machine and then decrypting it with the key? Does Windows not give you access to the key?

At the time of writing, there are already other replies to this comment how "it's mandatory today to encrypt drives" without any qualifiers. I am growing more and more frustrated by people who try to force security measures like this "because it is more secure that way" without first taking a look at the risks, impacts and associated costs. I think they simply force these security measures on others to feel good about their choices.

It was a breath of fresh reasonability when I found out that apt intentionally uses only HTTP instead of blanket HTTPS everywhere because the packages are signed, therefore they can be verified by the client, and using HTTP allows easier caching with cache proxies and such.

I'm not sure how BitLocker compares with LUKS, but the ability to set (or revoke) multiple keys in the drive header gives a lot of flexibility.

For example, The same drive could be unlocked multiple ways:

* A passphrase that you memorize or metaphorically throw in a vault somewhere.

* A key tied to the hardware so that it is automatically supplied, or requires a lesser input like a PIN.

* Same as above, but added to support another computer you anticipate swapping the drive to.

1. Use a password-based encryption method (not tied to hardware identity) if you prioritize moving the disk around. Then it is just as readable in a spare machine.

2. Use an easy to remember password/passphrase and write it down somewhere you keep paper documents, if you prioritize recovery.

This still provides meaningful protection when you need to discard the drive. The random downstream recipient of the hardware will not know your password, even if you skip the step where you "crypto-shred" the drive by setting a new random password.

The vast majority of people don't know that this is an option or how to do it.

I'd say it's mandatory today to encrypt drives. In the age of SSDs it's not really possible anymore to delete files and to be sure they are in no way recoverable by an adversary.

edit: I realised I overplayed how much faster and smoother it is. compared to standard win 10 or 11. Example being my login screen sometimes struggles to come up when the computer is locked (work around double mash CTRL-ALT-DEL)

"Just make a new account." It's possible but then we'd have to make sure we get every single saved game for all the various games moved over and ugh.

There was no way to use this expensive purchase from the kid's account on the same machine! Stupid bullshit - I gave up on Windows from then on.

Not everything. I say: use the option to switch to Linux.

I installed PopOS and Steam for my 11 y/o. She games either on her Nintendo Switch (not Microsoft) or on her iPad (not Microsoft) or on Linux (not Microsoft).

Wife works from a Debian desktop PC, so do I.

Microsoft is not allowed in this house.

Recently moved desktop to Linux though so hopefully don’t need to deal with them again

Absolutely hate it. Can't wait to ditch Xbox for PS.

Then it was showing me shit like the FTSE 100 price right on the desktop, and some stupid thing about the football world cup. All totally unsolicited spam. I couldn't believe people put up with Windows some 15 years ago when I ditched it. Now I'm convinced some people are just conditioned to being in an abusive relationship and can't imagine any different.

Solidworks, needs special license to work in a VM that my company is not willing to pay for

DAWs, need real time access to low level audio stuff

Games, well, lets just say the experience is better with wine on linux

With the exception of work, at some point I decided that not only is windows dead to me, but any application that can only run on windows is also dead to me.

Apart from that, I have no desire to keep my home PC on windows.

When the last bastion of Windows, the driver support is falling, I can switch to Linux. Since 2 month I use openSuse on this device and be happy. No running fan, no problems. Windows is dying.

What would their choice be anyways? It's like saying "yet people still die, they do not really care, they even engage in activities which hasten their deaths!"

That's irrelevant, because they don't owe you an excuse to begin with.

Did you make sure to disable telemetry in .NET, and also separately in PowerShell, and also separately in Windows Terminal, and also of course in Windows itself? Otherwise your machine is sending your data to Microsoft by default.

Of course, even if you do disable all of those, there are likely to be other Microsoft programs with their own telemetry enabled by default. And even if you disable those, they could at any moment add more telemetry that you don't know about.

At least macos doesn't require it to install software.

ios is a different story.

- Disable the network cards in the BIOS

- Install

- When prompted to setup the network press Shift+F10

- Type: start ms-cxh:localonly

- Setup the local account

- After install completes re-enable the network cards in the BIOS

Nothing could be easier. Truly the most user-friendly OS.

So I removed that account but when W10 was released, it was offered during initial setup of upgraded system. Windows still stored information about that account somewhere.

And yes, there are system tools still present today in W11 that allows users to create additional local accounts beside the default one set during installation - that's mmc snap-in (terrible name) local users and groups or net user for console. But I totally get it and support: people don't want to be forced for an online account out of the box, for a local workflow.

Similar to how there is no actual citizen representation in the Congress of the US.

Now stop whining and get back to work.

Does the encryption keep the user's data safe if the device is lost or stolen? Yes? Then it fulfills its main purpose.

- you have to dodge dark patterns to get through setup without one

- you can't install software

Consider Chromium (the open source build) instead of Chrome when you migrate to Linux. It is in the main repo of most distributions. Chrome is literally spyware. Also Firefox (with the real uBlock Origin, not the watered down version for Chrome/Chromium) is excellent.

Implementing a strict "no fiddly shit on my game machine" policy was one of the best choices for my mental health that I've made: It's a dedicated machine for gaming, with nothing really sensitive on it aside from gaming related accounts, and its only purpose is to play games with the least amount of immediate hassle. In other words, if the choice is installing something ugly or fiddling, that launcher, kernel level anticheat or whatever it is gets installed.

And from the article: "Technician's know how to get around this, but not everyone using a computer is a technician."

To use an alternative, you need to know someone with the knowledge and ability and able to request their time. Backing up data, burning USB sticks, installing, setup new backup solution, resyncing bookmarks, creating shortcuts to their email, replacements for the apps they use... all the details takes a lot of time, and it is ongoing work. Someone has to become 'the technician' and provide support. Otherwise, people have no option except to keep bumbling along with the default or somehow become 'the technician' themselves without any guide but web forums and ChatGPT.

Yeah, compatibility on Linux is better now, especially with Valve implementing Proton so games would run on the Steam Deck.

But there are still incompatible games, and non-Windows operating systems are generally not a priority for many game developers. So, you have to hope that either Valve or the community have found a way to make them run on other systems.

And then there's the aforementioned niche stuff. Yes, your games may be compatible with Linux, but what about the tools needed to mod them? Plenty of modding and ROM hacking communities only develop for Windows, so anyone looking to get involved in those scenes has no real choice other than to use Windows. Wouldn't be surprised if plenty of non-gaming communities made heavy use of tools from the days of Windows 95 or MS DOS too, whose creators haven't bothered to update them in years or who have no interest in porting them to Linux in general. Bonus points if the tool is closed source freeware from some site that looks like it was made in 1995.

Not everyone does everything from a web browser.

The lag will be with you. VNC won’t be any better.

He’ll, even some YouTube videos are overly taxing from Firefox in Linux.

Also Stream seems to think Windows is more equal than Linux…

I remember the first time I partitioned my hard drive and did a dual boot and I was really unsure about so many things. It is intimating.

I literally hate the Windows 11 taskbar.

Anyway, I’d be more sympathetic to this way of thinking if windows wasn’t getting worse over time. But it seems like investment in the OS is being disfavored for investment in AI-in-things-no-one-wants-AI-in, which is inverse of the subsidy direction you propose

Then buy Pro. Most people aren't happy to spend more money.

Perhaps you hear no complaints because unlike on Windows, MacOS does not spoon-feed you 10 screens of dark-pattern-riddled upsell ads with options of "Remind me later", "Yes" during set-up. It quite literally feels like being spat on, considering Windows is not a free operating system, and yet it still riddles you with ads and dark patterns as if some horrible shareware from the mid 2000s.

First and foremost Linux was free, no money, no licenses, no procurement procedures, download and install.

Windows insisted to have a GUI even on servers and you had to remote desktop to them and click click click. That was how most of the world was using those NT 3.51 boxes.

It soon became PHP vs ASP and Java run on both OSes equally well.

There were still many Unix developers around and they picked up Linux at least as a deployment target.

Web servers were developed for Unix first. Porting to Linux was trivial. Porting to Windows not so. We had to wait for IIS.

2. Friction. This is likely MS's attempt to slow-walk Windows into a subscription service. If nobody resisted, that walk wouldn't be slow.

By contrast, I got a few Chromebooks and all my employees prefer them. If it weren't for a few legacy things, I'd switch entirely to ChromeOS or ChromiumOS.

https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat

Persists after updates, and is a straightforward easily auditable PowerShell script enabling/disabling Windows/app features via approved OS provided API interfaces without any hacky brittle workarounds that eventually stop working.

It's the first thing I install on any fresh Windows 11 install for the past 4+ years. I get more ads on MacOS thanks to their lovely Apple TV, iCloud, etc push notifications than I ever see on Windows 11 (≈ 0) after running it.

I've updated hundreds of times across multiple machines and it's never stopped working. I'm only reminded it exists by its absence whenever I use an out of the box Win 11 install on a new PC which is painful in comparison.

I actually prefer debloated Win 11 to plain Win 10 because I get all the benefits like vastly superior multi monitor support on 11 with basically zero negatives.

Nobody deserves to be abused.