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

Zarathustra[H] said:
I think the difference there is that when Google and Apple started this years ago, there was a sense that "well, these are only phones, who cares".

Phones had a long history of being tied to contracts, and never felt as independently and absolutely "mine" as a PC you built yourself did.

Since then phones have become ever more important to every day lives, and now it is being applied to computers as well.

I'm not going to lie. I don't like Google and Apples approach either.

I would totally support legal requirements that all electronic products must have the ability to use their full functionality independent of any anyone else's server. I would also support regulation completely and totally banning the collection, use and monetization of data or information describing other people.

Google, Apple, Facebook, I don't care. All of them can burn to the ground.

I would also include cellphone carriers, internet service providers and even the government (most notably the NSA, but other branches as well, excepting maybe the court/prison system and any agency responsible for licensing of anything.) here as well, putting an end to metadata dragnets. There should be an end to facial recognition, and an end to the indiscriminate use of cameras in public places tracking peoples license plates.

Essentially any organization would be banned from collecting any data on any person without their explicit consent, and they must be provided an easy way to keep track of everyone they have given consent to, and to easily remove that consent whenever they feel like it. The only data that should be collected about a user is the data needed to make that service work for that user. This data should be prohibited from any analysis or monetization what so ever, and should be permanently removed as soon as it is no longer necessary to provide the user their service.

Furthermore personal data should not be allowed to be traded for free services. Services that are free must be provided with or without consent to use data.

Essentially the only users of personal data should be those conducting clinical trials, or research studies that benefit the public, both of which only with full informed consent.

The only other exception would be credit reporting agencies, but only for the express purpose of providing credit reports to potential lenders as requested by the individual who the data describes, not for marketing or other purposes.

All holders of personal data would also become explicitly liable (actual losses + serious damages awards) for any personal data which is lost to theft.

If any politician promises to pursue this goal, it almost doesn't matter what else they support. I would likely overnight become a single issue voter.

I wouldn't even stop there. I would require the discontinuation, destruction and deletion of any product previously created using data collected without users explicit consent, even if only as an input to machine learning algorithms.
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You had me at "[a]ll of them can burn to the ground." ;)

One or two of those points might be a problem, but in spirit, yes. That's unfortunately going to prove difficult to sell, as most Americans seem at best apathetic toward the basic ideas of freedom and privacy, if they're not actively working to undermine them.
 
Zedicus said:
yes, and that is an aside to my point. most of us have several computers in our house, maybe kids with computers, ETC. why not use SAMBA4 and AD? it is literally free, and will run on any old pc laying around, AND no more fighting local accounts.
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because 99.9999% of home users have no idea how to set it up, have no extra systems to set it up on and lastly would have NO clue how to maintain it or use it or make it redundant.
 
MrGuvernment said:
because 99.9999% of home users have no idea how to set it up, have no extra systems to set it up on and lastly would have NO clue how to maintain it or use it or make it redundant.
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That and there are an incredibly small number of reasons to run it in a home environment that wouldn't just be adding complexity for the sake of complexity.

The biggest strengths of the domain environment are in permission/user management, group policies, share mapping, and other things needed to automate larger environments. To add these to a standard household just sounds like a way to overcomplicate things for the sake of complicating them, It wouldn't really add any benefits to that sort of environment that couldn't be handled with a simple workgroup.
 
MrGuvernment said:
because 99.9999% of home users have no idea how to set it up, have no extra systems to set it up on and lastly would have NO clue how to maintain it or use it or make it redundant.
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well this forum used to primarily be tech related, as such, i though the recommendation fit well here.

Seeings as how this place is primarily for arguing about politics now, (never-mind the fact that this specific post is about an OPERATING SYSTEM) i thought recommending a free way to not only overcome the user issue but also gain some nifty features for what i thought would mostly be relevant to a tech forum...

never mind i guess?
 
Fix Me said:
I'm mainly a gamer, so while I hear Linux has gotten better at gaming, I still seeing most saying to stick with Windows. I also have an arcade machine and a HTPC that runs KODI. I'm doing a little 4K movie ripping and while I do see there is a Beta version of MakeMKV that runs on Linux, I'm not keen on switching. If I had severe issues with Windows 10, I would consider it. I have had no issues.
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It is more about now if your game is coded for linux, that is the only stopper these days. Reality is most AAA titles are all windows based.
 
MrGuvernment said:
It is more about now if your game is coded for linux, that is the only stopper these days. Reality is most AAA titles are all windows based.
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That's not entirely correct; with the Valve-funded Proton (essentially a Winblows API and DirectX intercept and transpile layer) Linux-native binaries are not required.
 
schoolslave said:
That's not entirely correct; with the Valve-funded Proton (essentially a Winblows API and DirectX intercept and transpile layer) Linux-native binaries are not required.
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That's a semantic argument, the Proton translation layers simply try to work around the Windows libraries and do their best to reverse engineer the Windows API's.
The games are very much programmed for Windows and not for Linux, Proton is Linux's attempt to get the Windows functionality without violating any of their patents.

Proton is to Linux as Rosetta is to ARM.
 
Lakados said:
That's a semantic argument, the Proton translation layers simply try to work around the Windows libraries and do their best to reverse engineer the Windows API's.
The games are very much programmed for Windows and not for Linux, Proton is Linux's attempt to get the Windows functionality without violating any of their patents.

Proton is to Linux as Rosetta is to ARM.
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I did not make an argument, I made a statement of why Linux binaries are not required to play Windows games on Linux these days.

You are correct, Proton does use Wine to translate Windows API calls to equivalent Linux syscalls. For DirectX calls however, Proton uses DXVK which transpiles DirectX into Vulkan instructions. Wine used to do all this via software and/or transpile to OpenGL with the expected loss in 3D performance (see for a nice overview: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Wrappers). Occasionally some games actually perform better under DXVK (which you can also use on Windows to force Vulkan rendering for DX-only games) due to Vulkan-based optimizations in GPU drivers.
 
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Zedicus said:
well this forum used to primarily be tech related, as such, i though the recommendation fit well here.

Seeings as how this place is primarily for arguing about politics now, (never-mind the fact that this specific post is about an OPERATING SYSTEM) i thought recommending a free way to not only overcome the user issue but also gain some nifty features for what i thought would mostly be relevant to a tech forum...

never mind i guess?
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How dare you bring a pure-tech suggestion to this conversation without any political suggestions or ties.
If the technology presented isn't at least somewhat politically motivated, then it has no business existing in this dark cyberpunk future we have found ourselves in! :D

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schoolslave said:
That's not entirely correct; with the Valve-funded Proton (essentially a Winblows API and DirectX intercept and transpile layer) Linux-native binaries are not required.
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And how many games work with that, cause I got 90% of my steam library I cannot install in Linux, because it is coded for windows only, so i can not even install it..unless i go the route of wine, and what is the performance hit of using that..
 
Zedicus said:
well this forum used to primarily be tech related, as such, i though the recommendation fit well here.

Seeings as how this place is primarily for arguing about politics now, (never-mind the fact that this specific post is about an OPERATING SYSTEM) i thought recommending a free way to not only overcome the user issue but also gain some nifty features for what i thought would mostly be relevant to a tech forum...

never mind i guess?
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Do not need to be dramatic, my point is, this windows change affects everyone installing Windows 11, even those few in the world, of which a fraction of a fraction of a % who visit HardOCP and even then, sure, it is about tech, but i am willing to wager over 90% of people on this forum would have no idea how to do any of that. Yes, it could be a fun project, but it can also be a pain in the arse. if someone wants to tinker go nuts, but also be realistic about it.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Do not need to be dramatic, my point is, this windows change affects everyone installing Windows 11, even those few in the world, of which a fraction of a fraction of a % who visit HardOCP and even then, sure, it is about tech, but i am willing to wager over 90% of people on this forum would have no idea how to do any of that. Yes, it could be a fun project, but it can also be a pain in the arse. if someone wants to tinker go nuts, but also be realistic about it.
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So you guys discussing wine and linux compatibility, windows APIs, and directx, thats all peachy. But you rip me for mentioning a free open source way to do active directory at home. Gotchya.
 
Zedicus said:
So you guys discussing wine and linux compatibility, windows APIs, and directx, thats all peachy. But you rip me for mentioning a free open source way to do active directory at home. Gotchya.
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I only said it was overkill for most homes and just a good way to piss off the significant other. But I’ve seen worse uses for a Pi4.
 
Zedicus said:
So you guys discussing wine and linux compatibility, windows APIs, and directx, thats all peachy. But you rip me for mentioning a free open source way to do active directory at home. Gotchya.
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Some technologies are more equal than others. :penguin:
 
Lakados said:
I only said it was overkill for most homes and just a good way to piss off the significant other. But I’ve seen worse uses for a Pi4.
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My wife and kids actually prefer it, they can grab any computer and login, and have thier stuff.
 
MrGuvernment said:
And how many games work with that, cause I got 90% of my steam library I cannot install in Linux, because it is coded for windows only, so i can not even install it..unless i go the route of wine, and what is the performance hit of using that..
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A lot of games: https://www.protondb.com/
You have to enable proton manually in the Steam UI: https://www.howtogeek.com/738967/how-to-use-steams-proton-to-play-windows-games-on-linux/

I’d say give it a try - you might be pleasantly surprised how many games and how well they run. But anyways - this is getting pretty off topic.

“Coded for windows” really doesn’t mean much since Wine translates the APIs (loading shared libs, opening/closing files, etc) and DXVK handles transpiling DirectX calls into Vulkan insns. Historically the performance hit came from Wine translating directx calls to OpenGL which was just… atrocious performance wise due to how OpenGL works and lack of driver optimizations. Transpiling to vulkan gets near native (or even better than) directx performance. It works so well that Valve commissioned a custom APU from AMD for their new steam deck which ships with and runs Linux for gaming. That’s a huge investment on valves part to risk if Proton didn’t actually work. I think the usual windows-shills underestimate how far Proton has come and how little anyone actually “needs” windows (in fact it’s really the opposite - Microsoft needs users to siphon data from lol).
 
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schoolslave said:
A lot of games: https://www.protondb.com/
You have to enable proton manually in the Steam UI: https://www.howtogeek.com/738967/how-to-use-steams-proton-to-play-windows-games-on-linux/

I’d say give it a try - you might be pleasantly surprised how many games and how well they run. But anyways - this is getting pretty off topic.

“Coded for windows” really doesn’t mean much since Wine translates the APIs (loading shared libs, opening/closing files, etc) and DXVK handles transpiling DirectX calls into Vulkan insns. Historically the performance hit came from Wine translating directx calls to OpenGL which was just… atrocious performance wise due to how OpenGL works and lack of driver optimizations. Transpiling to vulkan gets near native (or even better than) directx performance. It works so well that Valve commissioned a custom APU from AMD for their new steam deck which ships with and runs Linux for gaming. That’s a huge investment on valves part to risk if Proton didn’t actually work. I think the usual windows-shills underestimate how far Proton has come and how little anyone actually “needs” windows (in fact it’s really the opposite - Microsoft needs users to siphon data from lol).
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There's the name calling again. You just can't help yourself, can you? Is it so hard to have a debate and discussion without you stooping down to insults and name calling?

I run Ubuntu as my daily driver. Only about 1/2, at best (just eyeballing, not actually counting), of my Steam games show they will run there. Hopefully that continues to improve, but I really am not so certain that a lot of these games will ever see Linux support, especially the old games.
 
Eulogy said:
There's the name calling again. You just can't help yourself, can you? Is it so hard to have a debate and discussion without you stooping down to insults and name calling?

I run Ubuntu as my daily driver. Only about 1/2, at best (just eyeballing, not actually counting), of my Steam games show they will run there. Hopefully that continues to improve, but I really am not so certain that a lot of these games will ever see Linux support, especially the old games.
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Theres no point in debating with people who have a surface, consumer-level understanding of how any of this works at best and start passive aggressively lashing out when confronted with that lack of knowledge.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Updates to existing installations to require creation and/or login to Microsoft account once installed.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/windows-11/internet-connection-install

I guess they've finally done it. If you thought "always online" requirements for single player games was bad, here comes the era of always online requirements for all computing.

I guess this means I'm staying on Windows 10, and once it goes EOL I guess I'll just have to stop using Windows all together.

Luckily gaming on Linux keeps getting better! Hopefully by the time Windows 10 goes EOL in 2025, there will no longer be a Linux gaming performance penalty.

I guess there you have it. 2025 is finally the "Year of Desktop Linux" :p
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I have a Linux media server...I suck at it, but I guess I'll no other choice once 10 is EOL.
 
Learning curve isn’t so bad if your not reinventing the wheel, Batocera makes a great home entertainment system, media server, streaming platform, and emulator all in one handy box. Very little to tweak from there (though I still can’t get a functioning wireless USB stick to work on my Odroid N2+)

Linux makes for a great backend love it on my servers and IoT, but why spend hours trying to make something do something, that something else already does better?
Valve wants to pour resources into developing Proton great let me know when it does a better job than Windows native and I’ll hop onboard but until then why fight your tools?
 
Lakados said:
Learning curve isn’t so bad if your not reinventing the wheel, Batocera makes a great home entertainment system, media server, streaming platform, and emulator all in one handy box. Very little to tweak from there (though I still can’t get a functioning wireless USB stick to work on my Odroid N2+)

Linux makes for a great backend love it on my servers and IoT, but why spend hours trying to make something do something, that something else already does better?
Valve wants to pour resources into developing Proton great let me know when it does a better job than Windows native and I’ll hop onboard but until then why fight your tools?
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Well, for me, the only reason I have Windows installed, other than to fart around, is because there are a few games that do not run on my Linux installation. As for the Microsoft account requirement, that can be gotten around by using it, then setting up your local account and removing your Microsoft account. The fact is, things seem to install and open faster on my Linux install, for whatever reason, then the Windows installation on the same computer, maybe it is that NTFS is not optimized or is simply old?
 
Eulogy said:
There's the name calling again. You just can't help yourself, can you? Is it so hard to have a debate and discussion without you stooping down to insults and name calling?

I run Ubuntu as my daily driver. Only about 1/2, at best (just eyeballing, not actually counting), of my Steam games show they will run there. Hopefully that continues to improve, but I really am not so certain that a lot of these games will ever see Linux support, especially the old games.
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Are you referring to native support or Proton support? Also, a lot of older games will not run on newer Windows because of old and unsupported anti cheat or copy protection schemes.
 
Eulogy said:
There's the name calling again. You just can't help yourself, can you? Is it so hard to have a debate and discussion without you stooping down to insults and name calling?
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Where is the name calling? Didn’t see anything in your quote of his post that could be considered offensive.
 
Zedicus said:
My wife and kids actually prefer it, they can grab any computer and login, and have thier stuff.
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Thanks for your inputs. I am familair with AD for enterprise environment, but had not considered it, nor SAMBA4, for home. I will go look into this for a fun new project
 
One drive and Teams running is like riding a motorcycle with your heel pressing on the back brake! ;-)
 
ManofGod said:
Well, for me, the only reason I have Windows installed, other than to fart around, is because there are a few games that do not run on my Linux installation. As for the Microsoft account requirement, that can be gotten around by using it, then setting up your local account and removing your Microsoft account. The fact is, things seem to install and open faster on my Linux install, for whatever reason, then the Windows installation on the same computer, maybe it is that NTFS is not optimized or is simply old?
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NTFS does a lot of things that most home users do not need and adds noticeable bloat but it is coming up on 30 years old, so it is by no means young. EXT4 on the other hand is very lean and does some great things but does lack some security and reliability features which are largely unneeded in a home environment but desired in a corporate one, like secure deletion and there are some delayed allocation flags that can trigger potential data corruption. NTFS is basically the jack of all trades file system but I do wonder if Microsoft is looking to retire it at some soon stage.
But yes a modern Linux install will feel more snappy than the same Windows one based on the file systems alone and will offer a performance advantage on any jobs that require IO to the drives
 
1_rick said:
Well, they were working on Resilient FS for a long time and then appear to have given up on it.
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For consumer desktop yes, but it is their GoTo filing system for the Azure cloud systems in their proprietary setups. It is designed from the ground up for data resiliency in large distributed systems it's not the right tool for a home PC in the slightest.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
People already gave up privacy with 10 - telemetry that can't be turned off.

If you haven't already moved to Linux, get used to it or make a change.
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Still waiting for somebody to tell me what this telemetry that they collect that can't be turned off is because if you are running Pro or higher it all is certainly capable of being turned off with the exception of crash reports but those don't contain anything that wasn't present in all previous versions of windows. I don't believe I have ever used a windows home edition so I can't comment on telemetry on those editions.

Edit:
Wait no I just checked, checking Disable diagnostic data to True in Group Policy editor does disable the crash reports as well as a few other things.

Another Edit:
Double-checked that both Disable Diagnostic Data and Customer Experience Improvement flags are available in Home edition as well, and disabling those two blocks out everything that isn't covered in the GUI process that is run when you create the user profile.
 
Eulogy said:
Fusion360 surprised me, too. I went to use it the other day on my Ubuntu desktop, and it was a truly terrible experience. And yeah, some folks like to claim games work well under Linux -- a bunch do, for sure, more than ever before -- but a ton don't, or need kid-glove handling, and/or have worse perf than Windows. No thanks to any of that.
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I'm surprised that CAD software hasn't been ported to Linux yet. I'm using it because it's easy and does the job and would hate to learn another CAD software that is ported to Linux.
GotNoRice said:
Because you can't read an article correctly? Nothing actually changed in terms of what you can or can't do with a local account.
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Nobody's talking about local accounts. You can't install Windows 11 without an Internet connection. You can't install Windows 11 with a local account alone. You need to log in online or you ain't installing Windows 11.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Updates to existing installations to require creation and/or login to Microsoft account once installed.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/windows-11/internet-connection-install

I guess they've finally done it. If you thought "always online" requirements for single player games was bad, here comes the era of always online requirements for all computing.

I guess this means I'm staying on Windows 10, and once it goes EOL I guess I'll just have to stop using Windows all together.

Luckily gaming on Linux keeps getting better! Hopefully by the time Windows 10 goes EOL in 2025, there will no longer be a Linux gaming performance penalty.

I guess there you have it. 2025 is finally the "Year of Desktop Linux" :p
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Clickbait article that is a complete falsehood.

From the article, I clicked the link to the https://blogs.windows.com/windows-i...ncing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22557/

Searched this webpage for "log" to find log in or login, no mention that you have to be internet connected to log in. The title of article does say "to Install" , so already way less worrisome than implied.
Searched this webpage for "install", and found no mention of internet connection required even to do an install...

This looks like a bullshit claim.

Think about it. I know there will be scenarios where businesses with a closed network need to install an OS. There's no way that will become "impossible".

Doh!, the sky is still up there.
 
Lakados said:
Valve wants to pour resources into developing Proton great let me know when it does a better job than Windows native and I’ll hop onboard but until then why fight your tools?
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Your tools are fighting you, which is why we're fighting back. Proton will never be as good as Windows because it adds overhead no matter how good Valve gets it. Maybe if the application is running Vulkan or OpenGL which is rare for Windows games to do. We just need more games properly ported over to Linux. For now Proton is a band aid, and one that mostly works in Steam. We need Wine to adopt a lot of Proton patches so games outside of Steam have a chance of working.
 
I think this is overblown. People don't blink when using their Google account when setting up their Android phone or Apple account to setup their iPhone. As much as the Microsoft Store sucks, having things like games, apps, and (perpetual) MS Office licenses link automatically is nice.
 
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