Microsoft to Remove Ability to Install Win 11 Pro Without Being Online and Signing in to Microsoft Account

That being said MX Linux is currently the most popular distro. Ubuntu is #6.
https://distrowatch.com/
Distrowatch doesn't measure distro installs... in fact that website's distro ranking is as useless as it gets for determining the popularity of a Linux distro.
Microsoft is still emulating on ARM, while Apple is translating on ARM.
Both Microsoft and Apple use binary translation to run x86 code on ARM and reach >60% of native performance. Otherwise performance would suck in a major way.
Millennium and Vista literally had unusable, unstable core platforms that never functioned properly in the first place.
ME and Vista were actually both pretty solid on hardware that had proper drivers for the OS
Vista did eventually get it's driver issue sorted because 7 was basically Vista with a new interface and less aggressive prefetch but most people just went straight to 7.
Oh God no. Vista SP2 was OK/workable. But pre SP2 it was horrible and it wasn't just the drivers either.
I tend to agree with the camp that Windows Vista had solid foundations, but was a buggy mess until Vista SP2 (which is basically the same as Windows 7 RTM).

Microsoft rewrote major parts of the operating system, including their all-new network stack built around IPv6 but they didn't even bother to security test it. Also there was last minute lowering of system requirements to 512 MB RAM, which had the consequence that many people who bought a new computer with Vista (with all the drivers) found the user experience to be lacking.
 
If the product isn't open source then you are the product. FreeCAD and Fusion 360 can both be free but one is really trying to get you to pay for their services while the other is just free.


The main thing here is that Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all using OS's to get you into a closed ecosystem. Or as I like to call them "techno feudalism". Everyone is trying to make an OS that is trying really hard to keep you in their walled garden to collect data and force you to buy apps through their store. That's the whole reason Microsoft wants you to sign in with a Microsoft account. Also probably why they want TPM and secure boot for Windows 11. Apple gets away with it because Apple users are idiots. Google gets away with it because it's free. Microsoft though has not had any luck locking people into their ecosystem and they seem to be really trying now. Remember when Microsoft made Windows 10 for ARM and required you to download all apps from the Microsoft Store? That failed horribly. Remember when Windows 10 would mysteriously delete apps without notifying you? Remember when Windows 7 would update to Windows 10 without your permission?

Linux though doesn't do any of this stuff. It is truly free and truly lacking of any data collection. If it isn't then guess what? There's many other distros that do. Which is why my gaming PC will get Linux installed but on a separate drive. I have installed Linux Mint on many machines and I know the limitations of using Linux. For now I'm dual booting Linux and Windows but on separate drives. That way I can use Linux primarily and then use Windows when an application won't work on Linux. Gotta rip the bandaid off sometime.
I did the dual boot thing for a few years but recently switch to running Win10 in a VM (QEMU/kvm). I'm using GPU pass through so gaming is a real option in the VM. It's much more convenient than dual booting. I can be gaming on the VM and still have Linux up an running. I'm using 'evdev' so switching between the VM and Linux is just hitting both control keys at the same time. I do my daily computing chores on Linux and my gaming (games that don't yet work on Linux) and the occasional photo editing session on Windows.
 
I did the dual boot thing for a few years but recently switch to running Win10 in a VM (QEMU/kvm). I'm using GPU pass through so gaming is a real option in the VM. It's much more convenient than dual booting. I can be gaming on the VM and still have Linux up an running. I'm using 'evdev' so switching between the VM and Linux is just hitting both control keys at the same time. I do my daily computing chores on Linux and my gaming (games that don't yet work on Linux) and the occasional photo editing session on Windows.
It works well, I've used both Hyper-V and VMware's VGPU solutions and both work well in their respective roles. Hyper-V if the system is 1 on 1 but VMware if you need to subdivide the GPUs for a resource stack.
 
I did the dual boot thing for a few years but recently switch to running Win10 in a VM (QEMU/kvm). I'm using GPU pass through so gaming is a real option in the VM. It's much more convenient than dual booting. I can be gaming on the VM and still have Linux up an running. I'm using 'evdev' so switching between the VM and Linux is just hitting both control keys at the same time. I do my daily computing chores on Linux and my gaming (games that don't yet work on Linux) and the occasional photo editing session on Windows.
Does this require two GPU's or can this be done on one GPU? Cause GPU's right now aren't cheap.
 
Does this require two GPU's or can this be done on one GPU? Cause GPU's right now aren't cheap.
It depends on the GPU and what it’s doing, like trying to get an APU’s GPU to function as the pass through one is going to probably not work. But using the onboard for the host and the good one for the pass through would work fine. If your system doesn’t have an onboard GPU and only has a single consumer grade add on card it’s tricky, it can be done but performance varies and you will probably encounter some stability issues.
The Gentoo wiki has some good info on the topic.
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GPU_passthrough_with_libvirt_qemu_kvm
But when I’ve done it I try to have two.
 
Does this require two GPU's or can this be done on one GPU? Cause GPU's right now aren't cheap.
2 GPUs. If you're not gaming on the Linux side, you can just use any old compatible GPU you might have laying around. Since I build my own systems I've collected a number of low end GPU's that work just fine for the Linux side.
 
It depends on the GPU and what it’s doing, like trying to get an APU’s GPU to function as the pass through one is going to probably not work. But using the onboard for the host and the good one for the pass through would work fine. If your system doesn’t have an onboard GPU and only has a single consumer grade add on card it’s tricky, it can be done but performance varies and you will probably encounter some stability issues.
The Gentoo wiki has some good info on the topic.
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GPU_passthrough_with_libvirt_qemu_kvm
But when I’ve done it I try to have two.
Maybe I'm lucky but I've had no stability issues at all with my setup. I've been testing with some of my favorite games and so far I can't tell the difference between the gaming on the VM and gaming on a real Win10 install. I'd probably see a difference if I was running a game that used lots of CPU cores since I'm only allocating 4 cores to the Win10 VM.
 
Maybe I'm lucky but I've had no stability issues at all with my setup. I've been testing with some of my favorite games and so far I can't tell the difference between the gaming on the VM and gaming on a real Win10 install. I'd probably see a difference if I was running a game that used lots of CPU cores since I'm only allocating 4 cores to the Win10 VM.
With a single GPU it can get sketchy but if your not using it in both the VM and the local at the same time it’s fine. In my vGPU system it’s used by a few people simultaneously so the vGPU can divide itself up 24 times and the local runs on a shit Matrox card. But doing it with a single card really depends on how the system has divided the resource groups.
 
With a single GPU it can get sketchy but if your not using it in both the VM and the local at the same time it’s fine. In my vGPU system it’s used by a few people simultaneously so the vGPU can divide itself up 24 times and the local runs on a shit Matrox card. But doing it with a single card really depends on how the system has divided the resource groups.
Can the second gpu be an igpu?
 
So I just finished upgrading my Intune tenant and now users can just sign into the computers using the Microsoft account, which is their work email account and credentials I don’t need locals any more, still have them as a break glass but at this rate in 2 years I probably won’t have a local AD setup.
 
With a single GPU it can get sketchy but if your not using it in both the VM and the local at the same time it’s fine. In my vGPU system it’s used by a few people simultaneously so the vGPU can divide itself up 24 times and the local runs on a shit Matrox card. But doing it with a single card really depends on how the system has divided the resource groups.

I am using dual GPU's of approximately equal performance, an Nvidia GPU for the VM and an AMD GPU for Linux.
 
I just installed a two new Windows 11 Pro installs on two really old laptops and could easily create a offline account. I did turn off the features that does not allow you to install Windows 11 on these laptops so it would install with Rufus.
 
So, I actually did a clean install of Windows 10 for the first time in years this weekend, because of this and Windows made it easy for me. Apparently Win 10 Pro does not include drivers for my NIC (Intel x520 82599ES) on the install media, so I automatically had no Internet during install, and as such was offered the option to create a local account during install.

It was lucky too, because I had forgotten the stupidity that made it necessary for me to do that, and as such had not disconnected my network before starting.

In a flashback to the bad old days, I was forced to download the network drivers on a different machine and transfer them over on removable media, though :p
 
Even beyond the privacy component, one other reason to do this is so you can control the name of your user folders. If you use an MS account, it uses a truncated version of your email as your user folder. That can range from fine to completely obnoxious depending on the email. If you create a local account, you can use the name you want and you can always connect it to an MS account later if you want. There are other ways to do it, but this is by far the easiest one.
 
So, I actually did a clean install of Windows 10 for the first time in years this weekend, because of this and Windows made it easy for me. Apparently Win 10 Pro does not include drivers for my NIC (Intel x520 82599ES) on the install media, so I automatically had no Internet during install, and as such was offered the option to create a local account during install.

It was lucky too, because I had forgotten the stupidity that made it necessary for me to do that, and as such had not disconnected my network before starting.

In a flashback to the bad old days, I was forced to download the network drivers on a different machine and transfer them over on removable media, though :p

If you were installing Windows 10 Pro (or 11 Pro) then you could have simply used the Domain Join option to create your local account, regardless of the status of your internet connection.
 
JayzTwoCents just did a video on how to get around the 'online' MS account nonsense

Also mentioned a key nugget in the video that "each build they find ways to 'patch' the exploit" so this isn't one of those things "oh all you have to do is click 'I don't have or want an account'" bottom line is you will need an account at some point which is 100% the problem.
 
Also mentioned a key nugget in the video that "each build they find ways to 'patch' the exploit" so this isn't one of those things "oh all you have to do is click 'I don't have or want an account'" bottom line is you will need an account at some point which is 100% the problem.

It is. And if or when that happens, it will be the last day I use Windows.
 
Well I got the please setup/sign-in a MS account yesterday booting up. I found it was weird it was taking a lot longer then normal. It only allows to postpone it for 3 days before it asks again.
 
Well I got the please setup/sign-in a MS account yesterday booting up. I found it was weird it was taking a lot longer then normal. It only allows to postpone it for 3 days before it asks again.
I built a new Win 11 Pro machine in December, and skipped the MS account. It hasn't asked me since to add one (except maybe once when I logged into the Microsoft Store to download an app I'd previously bought.
 
I built a new Win 11 Pro machine in December, and skipped the MS account. It hasn't asked me since to add one (except maybe once when I logged into the Microsoft Store to download an app I'd previously bought.
I did a clean install skipping it also about a month ago. This the first time it popped up while booting. I been using 11 since it was officially released.
 
I did a clean install skipping it also about a month ago. This the first time it popped up while booting. I been using 11 since it was officially released.
Weird.

FWIW I spent the money to get a fresh copy at Micro Center so I'd have a USB drive that (hopefully) wouldn't get updated later to remove any loopholes.
 
It is. And if or when that happens, it will be the last day I use Windows.
I have since moved onto Linux Mint with Windows 10 on a different SSD if I need to boot back into Windows. I haven't needed to yet for 3 months. That may change with new games and etc but so far so good. I'm just sick of Microsoft turning Windows into something other than a OS. Mac OSX hasn't changed much in decades other than adding features and making the UI nicer looking. Microsoft takes away the start button in Windows 8, brings it back in Windows 10, and now moves it to the center of the screen in Windows 11. Nothing is where it used to be and it just doesn't give me as much control as it used to in previous versions.

My opinion on Windows operating systems is if you're going to use them then you should use the latest. You can get away with using Windows 10 for a few years but after that it's going to work against you. You want those security updates because without them your system is going to be vulnerable. The only reason I'd use Windows over Linux is because I have some very new hardware that will likely have features that won't work on Linux. Users of older hardware from AMD and Intel will benefit from using Linux in performance. Got a GCN1.0 card that has legacy drivers? You should first install Amernime drivers but on Linux you get updated drivers constantly, with bonus features like faster OpenGL and Ray-Tracing. The only exception to this is Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 where there's no Vulkan on Linux and OpenGL for the 6000 series mid range and lower cards are stuck on OpenGL 3.3 as FP64 support isn't there. Soft FP64 is in development but I haven't heard anything about it for a while. Older Intel GPU users may find that Linux does have Vulkan support unlike Windows. If you don't like Windows 11 then you may want to try out Linux for a while. Definitely don't blow away your Windows install for Linux. Dual boot with another drive.

 
I have since moved onto Linux Mint with Windows 10 on a different SSD if I need to boot back into Windows. I haven't needed to yet for 3 months. That may change with new games and etc but so far so good. I'm just sick of Microsoft turning Windows into something other than a OS. Mac OSX hasn't changed much in decades other than adding features and making the UI nicer looking. Microsoft takes away the start button in Windows 8, brings it back in Windows 10, and now moves it to the center of the screen in Windows 11. Nothing is where it used to be and it just doesn't give me as much control as it used to in previous versions.

My opinion on Windows operating systems is if you're going to use them then you should use the latest. You can get away with using Windows 10 for a few years but after that it's going to work against you. You want those security updates because without them your system is going to be vulnerable. The only reason I'd use Windows over Linux is because I have some very new hardware that will likely have features that won't work on Linux. Users of older hardware from AMD and Intel will benefit from using Linux in performance. Got a GCN1.0 card that has legacy drivers? You should first install Amernime drivers but on Linux you get updated drivers constantly, with bonus features like faster OpenGL and Ray-Tracing. The only exception to this is Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 where there's no Vulkan on Linux and OpenGL for the 6000 series mid range and lower cards are stuck on OpenGL 3.3 as FP64 support isn't there. Soft FP64 is in development but I haven't heard anything about it for a while. Older Intel GPU users may find that Linux does have Vulkan support unlike Windows. If you don't like Windows 11 then you may want to try out Linux for a while. Definitely don't blow away your Windows install for Linux. Dual boot with another drive.


Linux has it’s place, if you are so technically inclined then give it a go. I still believe it’s desktop experience and end user experience is sub par unless it is very heavy managed (looking at you Chrome and Android). I love my Linux servers, but I could not subject my general users to it and not expect my workload to tripple. Microsoft and Apple offer a much better experience to the less technologically inclined. Until Linux as a whole (Mint is getting close) can stupify itself for the average Jane/Joe it’s not ready to take centre stage.
 
Linux has it’s place, if you are so technically inclined then give it a go. I still believe it’s desktop experience and end user experience is sub par unless it is very heavy managed (looking at you Chrome and Android). I love my Linux servers, but I could not subject my general users to it and not expect my workload to tripple. Microsoft and Apple offer a much better experience to the less technologically inclined. Until Linux as a whole (Mint is getting close) can stupify itself for the average Jane/Joe it’s not ready to take centre stage.
This is why I recommend Linux Mint because it's the most Windows like experience, even down to Windows 10's faults. Kinda worried they may copy the Windows 11 UI. Also the desktop experience with Cinnamon is better because the start button actual works, unlike Windows 10. I never use the start menu in Windows 10 because nothing is organized. I find myself running into issues that I either had to work around or just go without. Razer mice support sucks because I can't change what the buttons do, though they do have software for me to control the lighting. Equalizer sucks because turning it on will cause some applications to stutter. I may switch over to pipewire as I've heard good things about that, but waiting for Mint 21 before I do that. While I do like Cinnamon, it's based on Gnome and Gnome is kinda of a resource hog.

The main issue with Linux is always Windows application support. Also Wine sucks, but I've had great luck with World of Warcraft and Elden Ring, which are the only 2 games I've played on it so far. I'm kinda surprised for how much Linux support there is, like Curseforge does have a native Linux app to update my addons, which is nice. Also, I've been bitching about how Wine is extremely divided and someone finally did what I said and that's make Wine with Proton patches, and that's the wine-ge-custom. I just copy that to /opt/ and just command games to use that instead if I run into issues with Wine Staging. I could use Lutris but there's no fun in that. Also, discord is better on Linux. I like to use a soundboard to play annoying sounds to people and Soundux just works. Unlike in Windows where I need VB-CABLE and a lot of screwing around with audio devices to get a soundboard working. I've also had people say I sound more clear in Linux, plus I don't have to install broken sound drivers like UNI XONAR to get my Asus sound card working. I have to compromise to get that sound card working in Windows because I either sometimes crash when resuming from sleep or use an older driver. In Linux I didn't do anything as everything was working from the start. Also, I installed Xanmod kernel and Kisak PPA for the best performance. Kisak is like Amernime but actually maintained by a Valve employee. Not super important but I did notice a few extra fps. These are not things you need to do in Linux but I'm not your typical user.
 
The trick I use that works every time is this -- when you are first setting up your Windows 11 installation and it asks you to sign into your WiFi ... go ahead and sign in. Then click to continue. As soon as you get to this point where it's trying to get updates, immediately unplug your internet modem (leaving the WiFi router on), so that you are still connected to WiFi, but without internet. After a few minutes of Windows attempting to continue with the set up process, it will think you have internet issues and it will then allow you to make a local account without signing into a Microsoft account. After the set up process finishes and you get to the desktop, you can turn your internet modem back on. I've done this countless times on many machines now. They've yet to "fix" this workaround.
 
This is why I recommend Linux Mint because it's the most Windows like experience, even down to Windows 10's faults. Kinda worried they may copy the Windows 11 UI. Also the desktop experience with Cinnamon is better because the start button actual works, unlike Windows 10. I never use the start menu in Windows 10 because nothing is organized. I find myself running into issues that I either had to work around or just go without. Razer mice support sucks because I can't change what the buttons do, though they do have software for me to control the lighting. Equalizer sucks because turning it on will cause some applications to stutter. I may switch over to pipewire as I've heard good things about that, but waiting for Mint 21 before I do that. While I do like Cinnamon, it's based on Gnome and Gnome is kinda of a resource hog.

The main issue with Linux is always Windows application support. Also Wine sucks, but I've had great luck with World of Warcraft and Elden Ring, which are the only 2 games I've played on it so far. I'm kinda surprised for how much Linux support there is, like Curseforge does have a native Linux app to update my addons, which is nice. Also, I've been bitching about how Wine is extremely divided and someone finally did what I said and that's make Wine with Proton patches, and that's the wine-ge-custom. I just copy that to /opt/ and just command games to use that instead if I run into issues with Wine Staging. I could use Lutris but there's no fun in that. Also, discord is better on Linux. I like to use a soundboard to play annoying sounds to people and Soundux just works. Unlike in Windows where I need VB-CABLE and a lot of screwing around with audio devices to get a soundboard working. I've also had people say I sound more clear in Linux, plus I don't have to install broken sound drivers like UNI XONAR to get my Asus sound card working. I have to compromise to get that sound card working in Windows because I either sometimes crash when resuming from sleep or use an older driver. In Linux I didn't do anything as everything was working from the start. Also, I installed Xanmod kernel and Kisak PPA for the best performance. Kisak is like Amernime but actually maintained by a Valve employee. Not super important but I did notice a few extra fps. These are not things you need to do in Linux but I'm not your typical user.
Why not let steam handle the games and wine handle the apps? Maybe I'm a different type of user, but there are not that many applications anymore that exist in windows but don't exist in Linux, especially with cloud services.

With office 365 and now even Photoshop being available as a cloud service, I think it's probably easier now than ever before to have users use Linux.

And as you mentioned, there's quite a few apps right now that actually do work better than Linux than they do in Windows. Hell if you have an AMD card even drivers are joy to work with.
 
Why not let steam handle the games and wine handle the apps? Maybe I'm a different type of user, but there are not that many applications anymore that exist in windows but don't exist in Linux, especially with cloud services.
I do this but Steam doesn't handle every game that isn't on Steam. I know there's a way to route this but I'd rather just have it where I double click and run the application, instead of going through Steam. Elden Ring runs through Steam just fine, but World of Warcraft has Battle net so I use Wine Staging for that. I haven't had luck with Fusion360 but TinkerCAD works fine because it's based on the web, but I like Fusion360 for more complicated tasks. Actually Lutris can handle all this including Fusion360, but Fusion360 still doesn't work. There's a Github for installing Fusion360 and it still doesn't work. The sign in page for Fusion360 is just white, and if you can't sign in then you can't use it.
With office 365 and now even Photoshop being available as a cloud service, I think it's probably easier now than ever before to have users use Linux.
Not a fan of the cloud. Besides paying a reoccurring fee for something I should just own, I don't like using a web browser to do stuff, especially video related stuff as it tends to slow down a lot. LibreOffice does the job just fine, but not many free software mimics Photoshop very well. Krita is pretty nice but I gotta relearn to use it, and it can be frustrating. Photopea works like Photoshop but cloud based.

I've had some people ask me how to switch to Linux and my answer is to get a second SSD and install Linux there. This way if something doesn't run on Linux and you can't find an alternative then go back to Windows. Windows 11 has left a lot of people wanting to just abandon Windows, but I know that Linux isn't ready to use 100% and that's why I left the option to boot back into Windows.
 
Why is MS fighting the public at every step?

They aren't. Nothing changed, someone just bumped an old thread. You can still create local accounts with Windows 11 Pro easily during setup, same as before. You don't have to disable your internet connection or anything.

The method illustrated in the link below works on the current 22H1 build (22000.776), the 22H2 RTM build (22621.105), as well as the latest Insider Preview build (25140.1000) - nothing changed, and again, this doesn't even require that you disable your internet first, it just works:

https://hardforum.com/threads/micro...to-microsoft-account.2017854/#post-1045285166
 
They aren't. Nothing changed, someone just bumped an old thread. You can still create local accounts with Windows 11 Pro easily during setup, same as before. You don't have to disable your internet connection or anything.

The method illustrated in the link below works on the current 22H1 build (22000.776), the 22H2 RTM build (22621.105), as well as the latest Insider Preview build (25140.1000) - nothing changed, and again, this doesn't even require that you disable your internet first, it just works:

https://hardforum.com/threads/micro...to-microsoft-account.2017854/#post-1045285166
The move away from Windows isn't entirely on how Windows 11 currently works but what direction Microsoft wants to go with Windows. The push for login in a Microsoft account is even harder than before, which indicates that Microsoft is pushing harder for telemetry data collection. Sure you can bypass it but until what version of Windows where you can't? The need for Secure Boot is pushing users away from Linux, because if I have to dual boot then that means I gotta enter the bias and turn it off and on, which is annoying. It also makes repairing devices difficult because again I have to enter the bias and disable secure boot to use a tool I need to repair. The requirement for TPM2.0 looks like Microsoft is pushing to become like Android and iOS, in that they seem like they want to avoid "sideloading". Which is a stupid way of saying downloading and installing a program. Windows 11's UI even looks more like a tablet, which again suggests the direction Windows 11 is going.

This doesn't mean that today Windows 11 is going to force you to use Windows only and only download apps from the Microsoft store but that is the direction Windows seems to want to go. Rather than being the frog that gets boiled alive, I'd rather jump out now before I feel the burn. Nobody requested any of these features in Windows 11. Nobody wanted Secure Boot, TPM2.0, and jumping through hoops to just make a local account and login.
 
The move away from Windows isn't entirely on how Windows 11 currently works but what direction Microsoft wants to go with Windows. The push for login in a Microsoft account is even harder than before, which indicates that Microsoft is pushing harder for telemetry data collection. Sure you can bypass it but until what version of Windows where you can't? The need for Secure Boot is pushing users away from Linux, because if I have to dual boot then that means I gotta enter the bias and turn it off and on, which is annoying. It also makes repairing devices difficult because again I have to enter the bias and disable secure boot to use a tool I need to repair. The requirement for TPM2.0 looks like Microsoft is pushing to become like Android and iOS, in that they seem like they want to avoid "sideloading". Which is a stupid way of saying downloading and installing a program. Windows 11's UI even looks more like a tablet, which again suggests the direction Windows 11 is going.

This doesn't mean that today Windows 11 is going to force you to use Windows only and only download apps from the Microsoft store but that is the direction Windows seems to want to go. Rather than being the frog that gets boiled alive, I'd rather jump out now before I feel the burn. Nobody requested any of these features in Windows 11. Nobody wanted Secure Boot, TPM2.0, and jumping through hoops to just make a local account and login.
And if they requested them they it would have been corporations making the ask. I have one game that I think requires windows and that’s because of the VR. But like most of the folks here, my computer doesn’t even turn on except to game. Everything is done on my phone.
 
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