Oh? Who would have thought? I sometimes wonder what kind of limbo people live in that this hasn’t been the clear picture for most since Windows 7.
This is the actual reason i didn’t end up going with win11, and tried Linux. Seemed like about a similar amount of bullshit to get to know my way around linux as it did doing regedits and getting around using an account.
I am now firmly in the camp of every option being terrible in some way.
Still using bazzite though, so it’s not worse.
Bazzite is underrated, its a great desktop os out of the box with solid gaming support.
Well, sure. Still had a bunch of unexpected weird stuff.
Genuine question, what was “unexpected/weird” for you?
I don’t disagree, in fact I’m in a similar situation coming to Bazzite from Windows. But I’d like to know what your experience has been like so far, Maybe I will learn something.
My own personal gripe is that they removed Discover in favor of their own store “bazzar” and I feel its just worse in every way so I tried to put it back and now Discover will “launch” and immediately crash.
In capitalist USA the computer own you… Or something like this?
I’m sure the fact that the Steam Hardware Survey just hit 5.33% Linux has absolutely NOTHING to do with Microsoft’s continued pants-on-head stupid and anti-consumer approach to things.
“complicates” is the mildest, nicest perspective
they didn’t have room for “is entirely fucking unnecessary” in the headline
correct me if My memory is wrong but I seem to remember something like this happening with Windows 10 and then someone came up with a way to install without logging in first but I’ve never seen a Windows 10 installation that didn’t have a Microsoft user logged into it
To this day, you can still create local accounts at setup
I think there’s generally always been some hackish way around, and the hackish way frequently changes between releases of installation media.
Also, when Windows Update deploys certain things, if you have a system that did this, you may get a full screen thing telling you to set up a microsoft account roughly “for your own good”. Even when you bypass that, the start menu and notification area generally are eager to suggest hooking your system up to a microsoft account.
They decided that since Android can so aggressively push Google accounts, they should get the same scheme going, but Microsoft has this pesky pre-always-online history of being an offline capable OS.
At the moment if you create your installation media with Rufus it can just do it. A simple checkbox before you write to your USB drive overrides the Microsoft account requirement and even allows you to create a local account with a specific name in advance. Yes, even for the current versions of Windows which are full of the latest bullshit, and in which Microsoft claim they have “removed” the workarounds. It’s always been the easiest way.
I have never used a Windows machine with a Microsoft account for my own personal use, only if it was somebody else’s PC that already had it. I just keep it disconnected from the internet during setup and it eventually gives me the option to not use it with a Microsoft account.
There is a command to disable the account setup too but I have only used that once. The disconnecting from the internet trick works for me.
I mostly use GNU/Linux for my own use but on the rare occasion I setup Windows for someone else or need to use it, I just disconnect it / don’t connect it to the internet before setup.
Pretty sure they blocked that no internet option too, though Rufus has a checkbox to re-enable it.
I just installed Windows 11 not too long ago (maybe 4 months ago) on a computer and it worked without even using the command to bypass it I am pretty sure. I didn’t use Rufus or any special option to disable it prior to writing it to the flash drive. All I did was disconnect an ethernet cable and install and at some point it just gave me the option to bypass the creation of a Microsoft account. I remember there used to be a special username and password you could use that would bypass it too but I didn’t use that as far as I can remember. I may have possibly tried entering random info until it failed enough times that it allowed me to do it but I’m not sure.
Idk why my experience is different from what some others are reporting. I am pretty sure I didn’t have to put the command in or do anything too special other than disconnecting from the internet and maybe possibly trying a couple of times to login till it failed multiple times but I don’t remember if I did that. Obviously since it would have been disconnected from the internet logins to a Microsoft account would not work anyway but it might have still asked me but I just remember at some point it just gave me the option to create a local only account.
I used Windows 11 Pro.
I didn’t put in a product key when I installed idk if that would have made a difference but that’s one aspect I can think of that might be possibly different from some people’s installs so I figured I would at least mention that even if it possibly makes no difference. I know Windows can read the product key from the motherboard but in my case I installed it one of my computers that was bought from a linux hardware vendor so it would not have come with anything like that. (I know blasphemy hehe but I needed Windows for something Windows specific that has anti virtual machine detection too and many of the computers in my house are from linux hardware companies to support the linux ecosystem).
Edit : So someone said that if you use Windows 11 Pro there is a way to use an option for setting up for work and a domain that it will prompt you to create a local account. Maybe that is what I ended up doing that made the difference that made it so easy to bypass the Microsoft account.
Microsoft and privacy shouldn’t be used in the same sentence other than for sarcasm purposes.
Since all of the “Linux is easy” folk are here I’ll ask a question even though I’m not near my PC:
I’m dual booting W11 and ZorinOS, I have 3 drives and only the OS drive mounts at boot. The other 2, games SSD and a storage HDD, have to mounted manually. An online search yielded that this was “expected behaviour” and “how it’s designed to work” but unfortunately it confuses Steam each time I boot because as far as Steam is concerned the drive ceases to exist.
Has anyone else had the same issue? I think I could use crontab to mount the drives at boot but it seems like something that shouldn’t be happening at all.
You can mount your drives on boot in fstab (/etc/fstab). This is only a low-key pain in the ass, and it’s probably a good thing your internally installed drives won’t change very often.
If whatever method you use to mount them outright requires using the full
mountcommand, possibly with a shitload of parameters attached, you can also do it on boot as a cron job that fires on boot (crontab -e) by prefacing the command with@rebootrather than the usual set of time parameters. This is how I handle e.g. mounting complicated network shares on my servers. This will fire before you even get to your login screen, so the drives ought to be accessible by the time Steam has to do whatever it does.I had to figure this out the hard way because everywhere I asked the question I’d get told how I was wrong and it’s good actually. So good luck finding anything helpful for your specific install. I will share with you some links that kinda got me there. I had to figure out most of the steps individually and piece them together from multiple sources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoq_cgAWMmQ
https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/auto-mounting-secondary-drives/970
I’m sure sure how relevant those links will be as I was trying to do the same on bazzite and not zorin but hopefully they help. If you are able to install gnome disks (if you haven’t already) there is a checkbox to do it for you but I forget where it is. I have a little document typed up on my PC at home that I can share with you as well when I get there later on the off chance that it is helpful. If you have questions, ask away I’m not sure I will be helpful but I’ll do what I can.
FYI, linux seems to hate NTFS partitions and that may be a contributing factor here.
Not sure what you searched for to get those answers, all I had to search was “Linux mount at boot” to get this answer with directions for editing /etc/fstab or using the gnome disk utility gui based on your preference
It’s absolutely bananas that internal drives are not mounted automatically by standard. It’s even more bananas that it’s not easily customizable via GUI. Gnomes partitioning app can somewhat do it I believe, in KDE’s partitioning app, it was completely broken last time I tried. Either way I lost two people back to Windows because of this
While I do agree with you on principle, keep in mind that while NTFS is technically supported in Linux there can still be issues. Reading is fine, but write can still be suspect. Someone a lot more experienced than I can correct this if I’m wrong, but it is not recommended to share a drive actively between Windows and Linux due to NTFS quirks.
I mount my Windows NTFS data disk as needed in CachyOS, and will build the NAS I keep putting off for active file sharing as I spend more time on the Linux partition.
Yeah its not a perfect system, has some flaws, but its actual freedom from surveillance and late stage capitalism on the plus side.
Not bad for a free, modern desktop that looks stunning.
Not sure, but I’ll give that a go this weekend when I have some time to play around with it. Many thanks!
The hard part is knowing exactly what language to search to get the result you want.
this was the only confusing thing I found withWheb I started using Linux, but once I got my drive mounting at boot at startup.
I don’t have any problem with doing it anymore but why don’t beginner friendly distros have like a gui version or something easier to do that with for new users?
Microsoft doing their part to get people to move to Linux
More “Microsoft doing their part to get people used to the idea of having to login with an internet connection so that they can make Windows 12 subscription based.”
Thats what this bullshit is. Training the user base for OSaaS.
And they will have enterprise by the balls because they control like 90% of the enterprise market. The consumers, they could give a fuck if they take it or leave it. Windows licensing is such an teeny tiny part of the equation that screaming at them is going to get as much traction as screaming at Nvidia for the fact that a midrange GPU is 1000 bucks now. Nvidia doesnt care if their consumer gpu market disappears tomorrow, they’ve got the AI fucks locked in.
Wow. This is absolutely has to be the reason. There is nothing better than a recurrent revenue stream. Look at Spotify, Netflix business model.
Heated seats in luxury cars.
Really. And even better, now they can granularize Windows even further. Windows 11 Home or Pro? Naw fam, that’s not enough. You’ll have the baseline Windows 12 sub for $10 per month…seems reasonable, right? Except that’s the baseline. That’s the version that can only make use of, at maximum, 4 CPU cores. Want to use all the cores in your bomb ass new processor? You need to bump up to the $20 per month subscription which includes the CPU-MAX add on. Not a fan of the basic Windows wallpaper? Well, fret not! You just need to download the Personalization add-on for an additional $5 per month and now you can change your wallpaper. Hey, is that a new GPU you got there? Yeah, you’re going to need to spring for the Gamer bundle…$20 a month for that, on top of the base sub. Oh and don’t forget about your local storage…they can subscription lock that, too. “You don’t even need local storage anyway! Just use OneDrive!!! It’s only a few bucks extra per month!!”…deliberately priced far less than the local storage subscription so that they can scrape all your shit for marketable data which you’ll see in the fine print of the ToS they’re allowed to do with abandon.
Go to turn on HDR…“sorry, you need the graphics booster add on”. Try to output 5.1 audio? “Sorry, no can do, you get 2.0 only, peasant, you didn’t sign up for the media add-on.” Want to throw another stick of memory in your rig to extend it’s life? “Sorry, base Windows can only use 16GBs…you need the performance package to address anything more.”
And you know what the best part is? This shit would all likely be legal. Know how I know? Because Windows enterprise server and software licensing is already like this, and has been for years.
Shit is so fucked man…
Everyone is thinking about this wrong. MIcroslop will only do their enterprise customers dirty at the very end, when they are dropping the Windows product altogether. How do SysAdmins do Windows 11 installs at their workplace? How are we expected to provision PCs without a MS account. Select add to domain and use your router as a ‘fake’ DC and then set the settings back to normal after the install. They can not remove that method, it is absolutely required for using DCs and MS makes a shit load of money licensing DCs. You have to pay per user.
Microsoft wants to kill on-prem for enterprise. Windows 11 Enterprise is a monthly subscription to your Office 365, sorry Microsoft 365, wait no Copilot 365 account. Exchange Server 2019 is the end with their subscription only version replacing it. They’re retiring Dynamics on prem to move you to the cloud.
The cloud services are parted out just right that you get almost everything you’re trying to do with one package, only to need the next level up at double the price for one little thing, or an add-on service that just so happens to need the E3 version instead of E1. Oh but you can pay twice as much again for the all-in-one bundle, it comes with everything! Expect that thing you need for regulatory compliance, that’s still extra. It’s like they studied the predatory pricing of freemium games and went “we can do better than that”
Selling you an OS once is of no interest to them. Monthly charges? Better but still not enough. All of your data flowing through their systems, ripe for harvesting and vendor lock-in? That’s the good stuff.
I think enterprise is the least affected.
Win11 installs are done with Autopilot. Users log in with their company MS accounts and if admins need access they log in with the LAPS account.
Enterprise moved away from local accounts even before COVID.
This is the case where I work.
First last and only time I ever tried to get a microsloth account, they fucked up my password selection and basically locked me out of my system wherein resided my steam account, emulation, and music libraries and all of my non steam games. Never ever did that again
I logged into azure on my home PC with the master account in work (I know i know) and now my home PC account is renamed after the company founder, who doesn’t even work any more.
Wtf Microsoft. Just stop.
Windows 11 has given me so many headaches at work I have genuinely explored moving the entire corporate environment to Linux. Unfortunately it would be a massive multi-year operation that would not bring the amount of benefits required to get such a thing greenlighted. But simply the fact that I, and many peers, took a good hard look at it tells you just how incredibly shit Windows 11 is. It’s a fucking nightmare on so many levels, it’s ridiculous.
They know that, that’s why they do it… And that’s why you should go ahead with it…
Yeah I’m in a (primarily) Windows shop too, but we have many Linux servers that I manage and maintain. My DD at home is CachyOS, and I’m very familiar with management of a fleet of Ubuntu servers. I’ve already told the guys on my team I’m ready to just switch at work too. Might cause me some management issues at times though because of needing Windows Server management tools (e.g. RSAT), but I suppose I could jump box that.
The only reason I don’t install Linux on my NVMe drive and leave it on my SSD is that I can’t reinstall Windows with a local account (though maybe there’s a painful workaround). If they break, they’re gone forever.
Rufus can still bypass every single W11 requirement and automatically complete the setup for you, including a local account.
There will be always a workaround, because Windows NT was originally built with local accounts in mind and the whole system’s architecture is based on that. Even if they block every possible way to do that using their official installation media, someone will just create a custom disc image, some script or whatever that you will be able to use to have a local account.
Chris Titus’s WinUtil. In it is a tool called MicroWin that can create a custom installation media which will allow local accounts and also remove all the telemetry, adverts and all the other crap.
Sail the high seas. Also, you absolutely can still skip logging in and setup a local account.
There’s an easy workaround : install W10 with a local account, then upgrade. No need for any kind of workaround. Disclaimer : this might have worked because I’m in Europe.
Otherwise, there are workarounds for a vanilla install with only local accounts that still works to this day, I did that in a VM. But that’s flimsy.
Of course, this leaves you to the whim of “fucking microsoft, we’ll screw you forever, bork your data when we want, force you to change computer every other year, and you’ll love it”, but the option exists.
Works.
I’m in Australia and this works. At least the last time i installed windows.
Just an idea:
- Get an HDD
- Use
ddto clone your NVME Windows drive. - Install Linux on your NVME.
- Boot Windows from the HDD as you find you need it (which I suspect would be a lot less than you think).
- If you find you need to go back to Windows, just reclone onto the original drive.
I bet you’ll eventually reclaim the HDD, though. I kept mine for about two years, and I nuked it last week, because I hadn’t even opened it, much less booted it, in over a year.
You can also just assign the drive you just created to a vm via VFIO. No need to dual boot.
I mean I don’t really recommend Linux like a lot of people do. I just mention it when it’s appropriate and give a list of its drawbacks and benefits, according to specific use case. For home users I just say that Linux Mint or Zorin OS are fine and even better that Windows for this scenario, but I must be honest and also say that something like ChromeOS might be even better if an user spends their whole time in a web browser.
For professional usage (except coding lol) I never recommend or even mention Linux for variety of reasons.
how the turntables
I literally just recommended CachyOS to my boss while we were complaining about Windows 11 in our one on one meeting today
