Yep, I will switch to Linux before I get another OS from Microsoft. Once 10 goes away, I jump onto a Linux distribution and use Proton.
I was hoping for a Steam Created distribution to come out, but I've been waiting for that for years. I'm just too lazy to switch over before I have to.
Same here. There's nothing tying me to Windows other than that's what I already have installed. Microsoft already announced a forced upgrade to Windows 11 next year. If I'm being forced to change my OS anyways I'm going to pick a Linux distro.
Why wait? I'd recommend starting now with dual boot to get comfortable with Linux. Not that Linux is hard, but it takes time to adapt to the differences. With dual booting you will be able to jump back to windows when needed while you find the way you want to do things in Linux.
Brazenly forcing anti-consumer features like this is an obvious sign of monopoly and abuse of their dominating position on the market. They should have been broken up a long time ago along with all the other big tech companies who have been pulling this sort of crap.
I remember when it happened. Back then we were concerned about how Microsoft was pushing Internet Explorer as a browser on its platform. And then we just gave up on enforcing Antitrust laws let them do whatever they want along with the rest of big tech. Since then they've been doing so much worse than that.
Lol, right. Linux ain't even close to replacing windows - just look at the gaming issues that persist, or other compatibility issues.
It's great for specific use-case scenarios, but I'm not dealing with supporting friends and family when stuff doesn't work because I told them to install a Linux distro.
Besides, business doesn't have this issue - it's only on home (not Pro) installs, because for business we do all sorts of system management that would preclude this, even is MS tried to push it.
This just reflects how MS sees home users - there's no profit there (never has been, it's always been about getting people used to Windows at home, to capture the audience).
No one in my family is allowed to use Windows Home versions. They either buy pro when they get a new computer, or I get it for them.
My standard response to "just go Linux" :
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it's still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I'd stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won't even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn't compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let's look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that's just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying "you should manage data in a proper database app". No, I'm not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That's just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn't realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.
Now there's that print monitor that's on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking... Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn't say "save creds"? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won't even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of windows since 2000, at the least, and would probably work on Win95.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I've installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it's gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn't look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works.... only it doesn't save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically.. but that doesn't work, so now I can't boot.. so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that... then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution... wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it's been four hours, it's 3:00am and I'm like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren't supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can't wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can't do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I've loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM's on Linux (Proxmox) because that's better than running Linux VM's of a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn't even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it's own way), and that's a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would've had a chance to beat MS, even then it would've required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980's to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
Sounds so much like a abusive relationship for a reason.
I've been happy on FOSS desktop OSs for home for nearly 20 years and work 12 years. It's certainly possible to leave. Windows wasn't my first OS, RISC OS was, so I already I could be treated better.
You don't have to put up with it! Windows will take all it can from you and give as little as it can.
Funny thing is, I find myself forced to use the command prompt more in Windows than I do the terminal in Linux. And don't get me started on the absolute nightmare that the windows registry is.
5 days too late; was setting up a new PC for a 10 year old, and we had to jump through all the hoops in the world in the terrible microS. family thing just so a kid can play minecraft bedrock edition.
We're at a point where a company makes an operating system used by a majority of the population while they force you to use your personal online account to log in, and they record everything you do on screen and collect an obscene amount of other information about you.
Picture MS getting breached in a couple years. What would that look like for you, the individual? Do you really trust all these screenshots are also locally stored? I doubt it. If they are today, do you trust they always will be?
Before this is all over, MS will be charging users to extract their snapshots from a proprietary cloud-only one drive account. The recovery process will take about 3 hours, and involve scrolling through ai-authored help articles that don't lay out clearly and methodically how to access the old snapshots. The comments on the help articles will begin with "Hello sir, can you confirm that you have followed the steps at this link?". The link, before delivering you to an irrelevant solution, will shunt you to a landing page that forces you to log into your microsoft account before you can see the answer.
I can't help but feel the individual direct consequences to be like pretty small to the institutional risks.
Imagine China all of a sudden getting access to all the trade secrets of US companies that still ran MS. Imagine Russia gaining full access to all the government, health, educational data of every single US citizen. Or imagine something like the recent fuckup of google deleting the entire cloud of one financial institutions. Imagine MS to fuck up royally and all consumer facing computers in all banks to be broken for three weeks...
All of these are not immediately targeting the individual directly, but they can be extremely destructive to a nation or even globally as a whole.
ai can now parse and sort through that data. cambridge analytica has the potential of looking like kid's play. who knows what they will be able to do with us.
Absolutely, however I think there is indifference or complacency in lay tech users. It might help open a few eyes if shown effects in peoples personal lives. For example, asking have you been getting obscene number of spam/robo-calls? That's because your info was either stolen or sold by the company's you shared it with. That would make the effect hit home better I think.
I remember when there was news that Facebook was listening to your conversations and suggesting ads when you logged in. Even if untrue it creeped people out, some even quitting Facebook entirely. Maybe something like that can happen with MS and they back off. Or better yet we legislate the shit out of tech companies, follow the EU way.
We're at a point where a company makes an operating system used by a majority of the population while they force you to use your personal online account to log in
I find it hilarious to see how many people rage at this from their iPhone or Android phone where they are logged in with a personal online account in order for the device to function.
I got a message on my computer, Win10, saying my computer wasn't capable of being upgraded to Win11, but it would be protected by updates until October? 2025. Nice of them to give me a reminder to switch to Linux.
The enshitification intensifies; the rate appears to have become exponential. This one is a deal breaker for me. I want to buy or use an OS that is my OS. I do not want any login beyond what I deem necessary for security purposes. Everything you and the software that runs on your computer does is loggable at the OS level. I don't want an email address bound to all that. Fuck Microsoft.
I can’t reveal too much but MS’s long game is to have everyone sign up for a Live account. They want to do what Apple did with Apple ID and iCloud, making every customer sign up for one. Expect more of this.
And this sort of thing is the prelude to them finally pulling off their "OS as a service" scheme and I guarantee you in a couple of years they will try to float a monthly subscription just to use Windows, tied to your M$ account.
Pretty much. The thing is it’s done sooooo poorly. Like beyond hot trash. They are also bringing it to all their games, PC, mobile, what have you. It’ll get much worse just wait.
This is just for Home edition, yeah? Pretty sure Professional still allows you to create offline accounts without a Microsoft account before joining a domain.
Last time I tried it let me create a local account, then about a week later I got called because Windows threw a full-screen blocker on boot saying a Microsoft account was required to continue with "I'll do it later" being greyed out. Oddly enough, ALT+F4 worked to close it and continue.
I tried not too long ago and had issues. I don't know if they hid it somewhere else, or removed it, but I ended up installing using a different method.
I do know they made it a pain in the ass to find the last time I built a computer, but I did eventually find it... though things may have changed in recent weeks.
You do it essentially while joining the domain. If you hit the "work" option instead of "home" it immediately goes to a "sign into your domain" screen.
Time for Linux. I don't like to change, I've used windows from 3.1. But I see no other option. They will pull the plug on 10 while at the same time are trying their best to make their shitty 11 even worse.
Huh? What if you're installing windows on a machine with no internet connection? Which is an entirely normal legitimate thing to do. It's not a requirement after all.
I have a number of machines that use a local account, they don't need a Microsoft account and will never be linked to one, it's unnecessary.
I had to do exactly this for a family friend in his 70s, it was a fucking nightmare. I think ultimately I caved and hotspotted it to my phone just long enough for it to be happy, and disconnected it while it was still loading the sign up page so it fell back to local account creation (at the time I didn't know about a@a or bypassnro)
For W10 you can still do offline installs with the media creation tool and telling it you dont have an internet connection, for W11 even enterprise users are all tied into autopilot, Intune MDM, and/or a microsoft account. I do not believe there is a method to install W11 without an internet connection and account. If there some some way to get the install tools to do that, I dont know what it is, and I do IT for a job...
Honestly, making the switch to linux full time is not that bad. Every tool, utility and program other than the most niche propriatary applications have a FOSS variant, and it is starting to sound like a bad relationship when people wait for MS to make a policy, change or product that isnt comedicly evil...
Just break up... If you need to talk at the hivemind of the internet for advice, we got ya.
W11 even enterprise users are all tied into autopilot, Intune MDM, and/or a microsoft account
The "win 11 business editions 23h2" iso that I got from visualstudio.com yesterday, did no more than the usual amount of crap to make it difficult to find the "join a domain instead", allowing me to make a local user.
They have an official workaround(which is just a stupid complicated way but that's still working). The one from OP is just a custom workaround some random found. Others pointed to the actual workaround in the comments.
Don't connect to internet, Shift f10 to bring up command prompt, oobe/bypassnro, wait for restart, click I don't have internet, make local account. Did it today.
The fact this is even necessary makes me want to shit a brick.
"Do you want to make an online account?" No.
"Okay, please set up your local account."
That should be it. And honestly, even that's egregious to me. Signing into online bullshit should be opt-in, not opt-out. Thank goodness I don't use Windows anymore, finally wiped the last Windows machine in my house this past week.
You can also just select the "for work or school" option, then it lets you make a local account because it assumes you will domain join it later, which you dont need to do.
Last time I tried this it immediately demanded I enter my domain credentials (which I don't have, because I don't run an Active Directory domain at home) and wouldn't proceed without any. So I had to fall back on the disconnect-from-the-internet song and dance.
I just checked with a bunch of corporate entities and they ALL agree this was a great idea so it seems you are the odd one out that thinks it's not a good idea perhaps.
People really be out here preloading their computer with viruses to get around Microsoft's latest bullshit instead of just using Linux, we ain't never gonna have the Year of the Linux Desktop
Wow.. it's like Microsoft really does want to lose customers. Welp.. I guess I have to find a linux distro as my main driver. Ubuntu seems so damn user friendly and "mainstream" I might just stick to that. I'd play around with ArchLinux or Fedora, but fkin lol at a noob trying to setup either one through terminal/commands.
That’s the thing, they have such a monopoly, they are sort of impervious to losing customers. That trope is long dead. The belief that a mega corp can be dethroned thru sales hasn’t been a thing for nearly 20 years. MS has a monopoly on personal computers. The only they don’t control is mobile (and likely never will). But when it comes to desktop and laptops, they are untouchable.
The major weakness in their desktop OS market dominance isn't from other desktop OSes. MacOS, ChromeOS, and traditional desktop Linux distros prevent Windows from being a total monopoly, but there's no doubt that Windows has quite a bit of market power.
The real competitive threat to Windows is from people who decide to not use a desktop computer at all. Between tablets and phones, there are a lot of people who no longer feel the need to have a laptop or desktop at all, for personal use.
And on that front, Windows being shittier than phones and tablets will cause people to slow down their upgrade cycle and maybe avoid using a traditional personal computer at all.
If you haven't found one you like yet, consider trying Debian. It's basically the same as Ubuntu, everything works the same on Debian as in Ubuntu but it's better because of less bloat.
Due to a slower update schedule, it may be worse at steam proton gaming than arch or something with a rolling release because that stuff heavily depends on how up to date your mesa or Nvidia drivers are. I can play everything except Starfield on my Ubuntu 22.04 laptop pretty much.
If Ubuntu works for you then by all means use it, but if you're a computer guy already installing Arch the long way isn't that hard and they even have an install script now.
So am i missing something (yes well definitely but still)? You need an online account to login to windows. So if im somewhere where there is no internet i just cant login to my w11 laptop? I cant use my laptop.. wow. I havent touched windows in a long time but still. Thats gotta be nice for ppl that are always on the road for work. Damn.
I can say that in the case of enterprise windows setups, the system caches your login credentials if it can't reach the domain controller, so that you can still log in even if you're not on the corporate network. I imagine it does similar for windows accounts (but I never use one so I can't say for sure).
I did this on Windows 10 not because I didn't want my Microsoft account linked but because I wanted my username to by my first name and not like part of my first and part of my last name.
I feel like recreating my account as a local one for this reason. I hate not having control over the filesystem and hate not having a normal looking username
for my main computer, sure, fine, whatever. I'll sign into my Microsoft account, I don't mind. but my Plex/Minecraft server... maaaaaaannnn come the fuck on. I guess my server can just stay windows 10 for the next 20 years 🤷🏻♂️
because it was super duper easy to setup and the overhead isn't all that bad for my use case. I am concerned whenever I decide to move/upgrade to something different since my hard drives are in a Windows "Storage pool" or whatever it's called