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

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.

Yeah, if I recall all they do is measure the number of unique visitors to each distributions page on their site and use that as an indication of a distributions popularity. It is a highly flawed methodology, meaduign neither downloads, new installs nor existing installs.

It's just about next to useless.

There really is no good measure of distribution popularity. We are left with educated guesses.

Enterprise IT types still seem to favor RHEL. University / researchers and other institutional users seem to lean towards Debian and Ubuntu server.

Non-gaming consumers seem to be leaving towards Mint, and gamers who get into Linux seem to like the likes of Arch and Manjaro.

As for which actually had a higher install base, my educated guess would be that it is between RHEL and Debioan/Ubuntu server, and that all of the consumer desktop installs fall rather far behind them, with Ubuntu and Mint near the top of those.

It's really just an educated guess though, as there is no real data to go by.
 
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.
I only use my phone for phone stuff. Any serious productivity is done on my computer. The removal of the slide out qwerty keyboard ruined any chance of being productive on a phone for me. Only good for checking email, quick web browsing, watching YouTube, and checking text messages.

The elephant in the room is that it should be optional. Microsoft could just make use of Secure boot once enable, as well as TPM2.0. If these features actually added any security then I'm sure users wouldn't mind enabling them. Same goes for making a local account or Microsoft account, it should be real easy and obvious. Microsoft hiding it the way they did is called a deterrent. It's not like a software engineer screwed up and accidentally made it harder to make a local account. It's not like Secure Boot and TPM2.0 couldn't be used as soon as it's detected. Windows does a good job turning on TRIM support for SSD's when a SSD is detected, so I know they can do it.
 
A bit overblown.

Similar to Windows 11 Home edition, Windows 11 Pro edition now requires internet connectivity during the initial device setup (OOBE) only.

So the Shift-F10 exit should work fine, you can then setup windows as per normal but you will have to set your privacy and security permissions manually once booted.

Does this mean I can register with a MS account, create a local administrator and ignore or delete the MS account I used. Because the option to install W10 with a local was so well obfuscated last few installs, that's what I had to do.
 
Does this mean I can register with a MS account, create a local administrator and ignore or delete the MS account I used. Because the option to install W10 with a local was so well obfuscated last few installs, that's what I had to do.
yes you can do it that way too. its easier to just not connect online though.
 
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.

Thank you for saying it better then I could, it's the slow creep that I am tired of.
 
Does this mean I can register with a MS account, create a local administrator and ignore or delete the MS account I used. Because the option to install W10 with a local was so well obfuscated last few installs, that's what I had to do.
I’ve just continued creating local accounts only, I’ve never had to use a Microsoft account for setup. I’m experimenting with it because I am contemplating deploying Intune out so it’s an experiment at this point there.
 
Desktop experience > "Chrome and Android"?

I prefer my KDE Neon desktop expeience to any Windows desktop experience.
Most desktop environments available on Linux are 100x better than what Windows 10/11 has. I can say this because they cater to whatever type of user you are. I can install Mate in my Cinammon Mint installation and simply log out and choose Mate and then I'll log into Mate. I can also install KDE and switch to that whenever I want. I've considered Mate since it uses a lot less resources compared to Cinnamon but it obviously doesn't look as good. There are themes for people who are used to the Mac OSX style of UI. It's all very well organized and simple too, unlike everything from Windows since Windows 8. That's when Windows went from user friendly to hostile. I like Android for the same reasons because I often don't like the launcher that comes with my phone. ChromeOS can eat a dick since that OS thinks a web browser is all you'll ever need.

If I want the Windows 10 interface for Windows 11 then I gotta edit a lot of registry entries and pay for aftermarket software that will almost certainly break with future updates. I can't even get the UI to the way Microsoft had it with some simple switches. This reminds me of Windows 8 because you could get the traditional Windows 7 like UI but with aftermarket tools. What the hell Microsoft?
 
I’ve just continued creating local accounts only, I’ve never had to use a Microsoft account for setup. I’m experimenting with it because I am contemplating deploying Intune out so it’s an experiment at this point there.

Me too.
 
Most desktop environments available on Linux are 100x better than what Windows 10/11 has. I can say this because they cater to whatever type of user you are. I can install Mate in my Cinammon Mint installation and simply log out and choose Mate and then I'll log into Mate. I can also install KDE and switch to that whenever I want. I've considered Mate since it uses a lot less resources compared to Cinnamon but it obviously doesn't look as good. There are themes for people who are used to the Mac OSX style of UI. It's all very well organized and simple too, unlike everything from Windows since Windows 8. That's when Windows went from user friendly to hostile. I like Android for the same reasons because I often don't like the launcher that comes with my phone. ChromeOS can eat a dick since that OS thinks a web browser is all you'll ever need.

If I want the Windows 10 interface for Windows 11 then I gotta edit a lot of registry entries and pay for aftermarket software that will almost certainly break with future updates. I can't even get the UI to the way Microsoft had it with some simple switches. This reminds me of Windows 8 because you could get the traditional Windows 7 like UI but with aftermarket tools. What the hell Microsoft?

Totally. You don't get much better than the exact desktop UI you want as the end user.
 
Most desktop environments available on Linux are 100x better than what Windows 10/11 has. I can say this because they cater to whatever type of user you are. I can install Mate in my Cinammon Mint installation and simply log out and choose Mate and then I'll log into Mate. I can also install KDE and switch to that whenever I want.

The number of desktop environments in Linux is not about catering to the user, the ecosystem was entirely created by community infighting and toxic developers creating enough spite in the community that people made their own DEs forked from the major ones. MATE and Cinnamon are perfect examples of this, their entire existence was caused by toxic Gnome developers bulldozing through the community and basically creating an Apple IOS clone and naming it Gnome when they went from Gnome 2 to 3. KDE had similar turmoil when going from 3.x to 4 and drastically changing the look and feel for everything. Then you have the lesser known outliers doing their own thing that are sometimes just a single developer, and good luck getting problems solved with those.

While there are dozens and dozens of DEs and UIs you can use, the thing none of them have in common is ease of customization. While there are hundreds of different themes and window decorations you can use, you can't change specifics of them like colors, how dialog boxes are laid out, text fonts and colors, etc. without digging into system files and having an intimate knowledge of GTK3 and 4 syntax, a lot of which isn't properly documented. And one big problem with all of these dozens of themes is that almost all of them are based on the now ancient and depreciated GTK 2.x codebase, while modern desktop environments and applications are increasing their use of GTK 3 and 4 by the day. This results in inconsistent layouts and bugs across different applications because if the theme being used doesn't have a configuration for later GTK releases, it will use either the system default or application default.

And like other Linux users, I was motivated by spite and made my own theme for XFCE. I was tired of every single theme killing off the window scrollbars and replacing them with 2 pixel wide lines that are hidden by default and having no scrollbar arrows. Firefox is next on my hitlist, the developers recently actually went so far as to remove the ability to use any scrollbar but the one they hard coded in to the software itself, rather than relying on the host OS for the theme, like they had since the very beginning of Firefox.
 
Entering a fake MS account and fake password fails and bounces you to local account creation, or at least gives you the option to create a local account.

I verified this still works on the most recent build of Windows 11 on a laptop that was just handed to me.

No need to jump through hoops setting up fake MS accounts to remove later.
 
Entering a fake MS account and fake password fails and bounces you to local account creation, or at least gives you the option to create a local account.

I verified this still works on the most recent build of Windows 11 on a laptop that was just handed to me.

No need to jump through hoops setting up fake MS accounts to remove later.
You can't enter a fake account. It will ask you to create an account if you enter one that doesn't exist.
 
Yeah, if I recall all they do is measure the number of unique visitors to each distributions page on their site and use that as an indication of a distributions popularity. It is a highly flawed methodology, meaduign neither downloads, new installs nor existing installs.

It's just about next to useless.

There really is no good measure of distribution popularity. We are left with educated guesses.

Enterprise IT types still seem to favor RHEL. University / researchers and other institutional users seem to lean towards Debian and Ubuntu server.

Non-gaming consumers seem to be leaving towards Mint, and gamers who get into Linux seem to like the likes of Arch and Manjaro.

As for which actually had a higher install base, my educated guess would be that it is between RHEL and Debioan/Ubuntu server, and that all of the consumer desktop installs fall rather far behind them, with Ubuntu and Mint near the top of those.

It's really just an educated guess though, as there is no real data to go by.

Big companies like RHEL because it's stable. This stability mostly comes from shipping with older time-tested packages. IBM recently bought Red Hat and announced that they're going to change RHEL into a "cutting-edge" release. This is scaring companies away from it and they're now looking for alternatives. There's been a great deal of momentum (and support) behind Ubuntu for over a decade now and companies are noticing that. I expect to see a large uptick in Ubuntu (or even just plain Debian) based servers over the coming years in places where RHEL used to be the standard.
 
Big companies like RHEL because it's stable. This stability mostly comes from shipping with older time-tested packages. IBM recently bought Red Hat and announced that they're going to change RHEL into a "cutting-edge" release. This is scaring companies away from it and they're now looking for alternatives. There's been a great deal of momentum (and support) behind Ubuntu for over a decade now and companies are noticing that. I expect to see a large uptick in Ubuntu (or even just plain Debian) based servers over the coming years in places where RHEL used to be the standard.

I'm definitely a believer of using time tested kernels and packages. You can get that approach, by just going with an Ubuntu LTS release (and not installing it when it is brand new)

That is what I have been doing on my servers for over a decade. I only just upgraded my 16.04 LTS boxes to 18.04 last year in April of 2021. I'll be keeping them on 18.04 LTS until April of 2023, when I will upgrade them to 20.04 LTS.

1655817562116.png


They also have paid Extended Security Maintenance if you want to keep the LTS releases even longer, but I have never done that because - well - I am not an Enterprise user, and I have better uses for my hard earned cash, but I feel like this could be utilized to help with delayed upgrades, etc. For me, upgrading every two years to the next 3 year old release is fine.

While I am no longer a big fan of Ubuntu as a desktop for a variety of reasons (I switched to Mint Cinnamon edition when the Unity interface became standard on Ubuntu in the 11.04 release, I also hate snaps with a passion) the Server release isn't bad. If I were to start all over today, I might just go with Debian for my servers, but I continue to use Ubuntu as I really don't want to recreate everything from scratch, and it continues to work well!
 
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I do it several times a week without any trouble and just did it again before posting..... I suppose [email protected] could exist, but I doubt it.

So, the last time I installed Windows 10 on my desktop, I had a NIC installed that the installer image did not have drivers for, so it automatically skipped the prompt to sign in to a Microsoft account and went straight to local accounts. This was a Pro install, but I'm going to guess it might have done the same on a Home install, unless they don't want people to be able to install that offline at all.

I vaguely remember the last time I did a pro install on on one of my laptops (might have been 1H21 or before) it would not let me skip the sign in dialog at install, even on the Pro version. I had to disconnect the laptop from the internet and restart the install in order to get the option to install with a local only account.

I decided to test install in a new VM to see what I would encounter.

First I tried Win 11. It refused to install on my VM's hardware claiming it was not supported. I'm sure there is a workaround, but I didn't feel like researching it right now. This was just intended to be a quick experiment.

Next I did Win10 Pro (2H21):

12.png


They are a little sneaky, hoping you won't notice the small "Offline Account" link on the bottom left, but it is there.

13.png


They then nag you to create an account. If you don't want one you have to click "Limited experience". This is obviously designed to mislead people who don't know what they are doing to create an account.

14.png


Then finally, you get to create your local account. (they still nag you not to down in the bottom left corner)

This was actually a little surprising to me given my previous install on my laptop mentioned above. I guess they went in this direction on Pro, but then backed off again due to criticism?


So, next I decided to try a Home install. Same 2H21 version of Win10

02.png


That "Offline account" link is not there during a Home install.
03.png


Just trying to skip it by clicking "next" doesn't work either.
04.png


Clicking "Learn More" gives you this little nugget of information. They state that if you don't want the account, you can remove it later. (Presumably they are hoping that most people are too lazy to do that, or just forget about it.)

Alright, let's try a fake account.
05.png


No luck there.

Let's try the one you say you use, [email protected]

Well, it prompts for a password, but since I don't have that password, that's as far as we are getting.

06.png



Let's see if we can create an account for a fake email address:

07.png

08.png


Apparently I need a complex password. Upper case, lower case, numbers etc.

POOPSalot1234567 was accepted...


09.png


Now these creepy bastards want my birth date and country.

Lets do Albania and February 29th 1896
10.png


Damn. You can't type it. You have to click back to the year you were born. This is going to take a while. I guess Microsoft hates non-Gen Z as well.


FAIL. You can't go older than 1922.

11.png


They won't accept the future either!

12H.png


I guess in that case I was born yesterday. It's easier that way. Well, it would have been if I had chosen it from the get go. Now I ahve to click one year at a time from 2122 back to 2022....

13H.png



Wow. They won't accept born yesterday either. I don't know the minimum age to be allowed to install Windows 10 Home edition, but I'm going to just try something random at this point...

Apparently 8 years old. (2014) is OK according to Microsoft.


Wow. Next way they harass you is to force you to create a PIN? Why on earth would I want that, when I already set a brilliant poopsalot password?
14H.png
For fucks sake, this is a PC not a phone.

Well. 1234 is a beautiful PIN, which also does not meet Microsofts minimum complexity requirements...

2014 (my fake accounts birthdate) is apparently OK though. Nice one Microsoft.

Now we have to go through all the privacy bullshiot, which IMHO should be legally required to default to "everything off".

15H.png


I don't know what the fuck any of this is, I've nevere seen it before as I've only ever used the Pro version, and it doesn't ask you this bullshit, but I'm not doing it . SKIP.

16H.png


The fuck? Why would I want to connect my phone to my computer. I'm really starting to get annoyed at this point. The bullshit they put those Home edition normies through would make me boil over.

17H.png


Now a Cortana setup page. There is seemingly no end to the goddamn bullshit.

18H.png


Not Now? How about "Not Ever"?

Anyway, after the Black and white "Hi" screen, and some waiting we are finally on a desktop. Now lets see if we can create a local account and delete this spyware account.


19H.png


Hmm. No option for "local account". Lets see what happens if I click on "I don't have this person's account"
20H.png


Finally. There is an "Add a user without a Microsoft account" option.

21H.png


...goddamn security questions...

Changed local account type to Administrator, then logged out of fake online account, and logged into local account.

"Hi"

More bullshit security questions...

Lets see if we can delete the fake online account...

22H.png


So. It IS possible to install Win10 Home with a fake account and then remove that account, but it is also kind of a pain in the ass.

I'm kind of glad I've never used Win 10 Home edition before. This would have made me tear my hair out.

I have 7 Pro licenses in the house, no Home licenses.

Also worth mentioning, this confirms you can technically sign up using someone else's email as an account, as long as they havent already used it for a microsoft account. THere is no email verification link or anything.
 
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Let's try the one you say you use, [email protected]

Well, it prompts for a password, but since I don't have that password, that's as far as we are getting.

PW doesn't matter, you don't want it to succeed. I use "fake", big shock.

IIRC this thread is about Windows 11. 10 is less of an issue as you can just not connect the PC to a network to create a local account. 11 on the other hand forces you to connect.

10 Pro should have an option to domain join which just has you setup a local account. It looks like 10 Home works fine using [email protected] with the PW fake as well. I assumed it worked with any account but maybe I stumbled upon gold :D

10 Login.jpg

10 PW.jpg

10 oops.jpg

10 local.jpg
 
PW doesn't matter, you don't want it to succeed. I use "fake", big shock.

IIRC this thread is about Windows 11. 10 is less of an issue as you can just not connect the PC to a network to create a local account. 11 on the other hand forces you to connect.

10 Pro should have an option to domain join which just has you setup a local account. It looks like 10 Home works fine using [email protected] with the PW fake as well. I assumed it worked with any account but maybe I stumbled upon gold :D

View attachment 485111

View attachment 485112

View attachment 485113

View attachment 485114

I suspect someone may just have created a [email protected] account, with the password being "fake" and it has randomly been succeeding for you.

Highly recommended removing the account on first boot so someone doesn't try to remote reset your machine :p
 
I suspect someone may just have created a [email protected] account, with the password being "fake" and it has randomly been succeeding for you.

Highly recommended removing the account on first boot so someone doesn't try to remote reset your machine :p

The account never gets added to the PC as you can see from the screen shots. It fails and prompts to create a local account instead.

If you really want to analyze it, it looks like it works because the account is locked. So if you do a lot of installs you could make a fake MS account and get the account locked via too many failed login attempts. (Or use an existing locked account as I have accidently done.)

This also doesn’t look like the Windows 11 installation screen.

That's because it was a reply to Zarathustras post about 10 home, as you can see in the post.

Feel free to try it yourself on 11, it works just fine.
 
Feel free to try it yourself on 11, it works just fine.
I have and it doesn't. If you try to put in an account that doesn't exist, it will say it doesn't exist and asks you to create one. I even tried this with an existing account of mine and tried putting in the password wrong many times and it never asks to create a local account. This doesn't work on a clean wipe of Windows 11 on several machines I've tried. So I've just gone back to the WiFi trick that I've figured out, which has worked every time.
 
I have and it doesn't. If you try to put in an account that doesn't exist, it will say it doesn't exist and asks you to create one. I even tried this with an existing account of mine and tried putting in the password wrong many times and it never asks to create a local account. This doesn't work on a clean wipe of Windows 11 on several machines I've tried. So I've just gone back to the WiFi trick that I've figured out, which has worked every time.

So, for shits and giggles, I went to microsoft.com and tried to log in with the [email protected] with the password "fake".

It appeared to work at first, but then told me the account was locked, and was prompting me to reset the password. This was obviously never going to work, since even if [email protected] is a real email address, I certainly don't have access to it.

I suspect that Kardonxt randomly stumbled onto an account someone else created, [email protected] with the password "fake", that has long since been locked, but that a locked account doesn't prevent you from installing Windows.

Enter a random account that doesn't exist, and it will prevent you from moving forward, but use this one that does exist and it will at least let you install.

If you plan on removing it after and using a local account only, that is probably fine, but it is a little bit of a circuitous route.
 
So, for shits and giggles, I went to microsoft.com and tried to log in with the [email protected] with the password "fake".

It appeared to work at first, but then told me the account was locked, and was prompting me to reset the password. This was obviously never going to work, since even if [email protected] is a real email address, I certainly don't have access to it.

I suspect that Kardonxt randomly stumbled onto an account someone else created, [email protected] with the password "fake", that has long since been locked, but that a locked account doesn't prevent you from installing Windows.

Enter a random account that doesn't exist, and it will prevent you from moving forward, but use this one that does exist and it will at least let you install.

If you plan on removing it after and using a local account only, that is probably fine, but it is a little bit of a circuitous route.
Yeah, that has to be the case. I'll stick with the WiFi method. You connect to WiFi and after connecting to WiFi successfully, you move onto the next step, then unplug your modem so the computer is still on WiFi but Windows thinks you have network connectivity issues, then it will proceed to start the local account set up process ... and that's it. I don't need to go the extra step of logging in to a Microsoft account and then deleting the account after making a new local account. This is the easiest method I've found and it's been working since Windows 11 was released.
 
Yeah, that has to be the case. I'll stick with the WiFi method. You connect to WiFi and after connecting to WiFi successfully, you move onto the next step, then unplug your modem so the computer is still on WiFi but Windows thinks you have network connectivity issues, then it will proceed to start the local account set up process ... and that's it. I don't need to go the extra step of logging in to a Microsoft account and then deleting the account after making a new local account. This is the easiest method I've found and it's been working since Windows 11 was released.

I'll just reach down behind the desktop under my desk and unplug the Ethernet cable :p

WiFi. Pshaw :p
 
If you plan on removing it after and using a local account only, that is probably fine, but it is a little bit of a circuitous route.

The thing is that it never links the pc to the account. There is no MS account to remove. It detects the account is locked and prompts you to setup a local account instead.

It's functionally the exact same as using the old domain join or create local account instead options. If you are really paranoid about it you could make and lock your own account, but since the MS account is never added it really doesn't matter.

Certainly not ideal but still better than signing into an MS account and removing it. Especially if you have to set one up for no reason.
 
no self respecting [H] member is willing using home...

As I mentioned previously, I hadn't used Home before. I've been all pro, probably since the WIn XP era.

In my little VM experiment a few posts up, it was surprising to me how much more bullshit they put Home users through during install. That alone is worth the $25 for a Pro license on Kinguin. (Though most of my licenses were bought at full price in the Vista or 7 era, and upgraded since.)
 
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The number of desktop environments in Linux is not about catering to the user, the ecosystem was entirely created by community infighting and toxic developers creating enough spite in the community that people made their own DEs forked from the major ones. MATE and Cinnamon are perfect examples of this, their entire existence was caused by toxic Gnome developers bulldozing through the community and basically creating an Apple IOS clone and naming it Gnome when they went from Gnome 2 to 3. KDE had similar turmoil when going from 3.x to 4 and drastically changing the look and feel for everything. Then you have the lesser known outliers doing their own thing that are sometimes just a single developer, and good luck getting problems solved with those.
I know, it's amazing isn't it? Having choices is amazing. I don't care how it came about so long as it did. As far as I'm concerned Gnome, Mate, KDE, Cinnamon, and etc all have good reasons for existing.
While there are dozens and dozens of DEs and UIs you can use, the thing none of them have in common is ease of customization. While there are hundreds of different themes and window decorations you can use, you can't change specifics of them like colors, how dialog boxes are laid out, text fonts and colors, etc. without digging into system files and having an intimate knowledge of GTK3 and 4 syntax, a lot of which isn't properly documented. And one big problem with all of these dozens of themes is that almost all of them are based on the now ancient and depreciated GTK 2.x codebase, while modern desktop environments and applications are increasing their use of GTK 3 and 4 by the day. This results in inconsistent layouts and bugs across different applications because if the theme being used doesn't have a configuration for later GTK releases, it will use either the system default or application default.
I'm sure Microsoft makes it easy to customize things. No wait, they don't have that feature. As a Linux Mint Cinnamon user I just open up themes and just download what I want and then choose what I want to use. Even then I can go online and download my themes and just copy and paste them into .theme and then I can choose those as a selection. I don't make the themes I just use them and using them is easy. I'm sure there's a lot to critique in how themes are handled but the fact that Linux has this and Windows and MacOSX doesn't is a huge win. Of course we should fix everything before Microsoft and Apple copy this and implement it into future versions of their OS.
 
Curious would it be a good idea or even matter if you used Rufus to disable TPM and Secure Boot bypass even on a PC that does support Windows 11? Just because mainly. Would that be stupid ?
 
Curious would it be a good idea or even matter if you used Rufus to disable TPM and Secure Boot bypass even on a PC that does support Windows 11? Just because mainly. Would that be stupid ?

The requirements only come into play during the install process. It wouldn't make any difference once Windows 11 is installed. So if you just wanted to have Windows 11 install files on a flash drive or network share and use that to install on any computer, there would be no downside to using the bypass on those install files.
 
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