New preview build adds Microsoft account requirement to Windows 11 Pro | Hacker News Reader

New preview build adds Microsoft account requirement to Windows 11 Pro

arstechnica.com

65 pointslisper44 comments

I've been a Windows user all my computer-using life but a couple of months ago, I switched to Linux. I was feeling harassed by Windows; you must log in with your Microsoft account to do this or that, ignoring my default browser and opening things in Edge, disabling features if I don't turn on telemetry, and so on.

My Linux desktop experience has been a little worse than I expected. It's inferior to Windows in several ways. But all the same, I think I'm done with Windows for the time being.

Same story here with MacOS and Arch Linux; and Apple doesn't make their hardware easy to run linux on!

I've found that overall my linux systems require more prep work to setup (planning bootloader, partitions, init system, background tasks) but the payoff is leagues better than what is even _remotely possible_ on Apple/Windows systems.

Perfect example: I have a python script which watches my downloads folder for new items. Obviously the .zip => folder already exists on MacOS, I built that for myself. But because python code is python code, I can also do .tar.* archives and it also moves "commonly named files" (minimum 3 to find a prefix) into a prefixed folder; so if I download "ProjX Plan.docx", "ProjX_code.zip", and "ProjX Finances.csv" I don't have 3 items in downloads/ - I have "ProjX/{ProjX Plan.docx,ProjX_code/<contents>,ProjX Finances.csv}" which is pretty awesome.

The other thing I loved building was a quick "notify me" command, which pings my phone. I often run commands that take ~2-3 minutes and rather than just looking at a progress bar I tack on "./slow-task ; pingme 'slowtask finished!'" and go do something else, returning when the machine needs me.

I'm confused. Your example is a python script, and you say python is python. So wouldn't you be able to do the same on the other OSes?

Use KDE. It's superior to Windows's DE in several ways and inferior in none.

Been living here in an exclusively GNU/Linux world for computing since the late 90s. The way mainstream computer users consume their software and tolerate ever increasing hostility and abuse, be it MacOS, Windows, Android, or iOS, whatever, has become completely foreign to me.

Back in the early days it was easier to understand since the alternatives were largely outright broken. But today Linux performs so well on supported hardware, even laptops, 3D acceleration and all! and the DEs so much more mature, and you have things like Chromebooks making it very accessible... How everyone faced with actions like TFA describes don't immediately at least try out a dirt cheap Chromebook or used ThinkPad off eBay w/Ubuntu boggles the mind.

I guess the lesson is never understimate the amount of abuse people will tolerate, especially when it escalates slowly over time.

> I guess the lesson is never understimate the amount of abuse people will tolerate, especially when it worsens slowly over time.

It is not only abuse. Some of us have to use Win as a work OS. Microsoft has, through various methods, some legal, some not, established as the dominant player and if you want employment, you have to use it.

> if you want employment, you have to use it.

I'm not referring to employer-owned hardware, where you have no ownership power over the hardware.

The vast majority of personal, privately-owned computers, are unnecessarily subjected to this garbage, it's those I'm referring to.

If you must for whatever reason, then use them isolated in a disposable VM like any other potentially hazardous software.

Surrendering control over the freedom to use your computer however you wish to these proprietary systems has predictably negative long-term consequences. These are for-profit businesses which will inevitably leverage their increasing control for supporting increased growth/revenue, it's only a matter of time.

I've done a 3 year stint of exclusively using Linux on the desktop at home. After that I bought a gaming PC for the first time in years and went with Windows.

Now, I can't justify sticking with Windows anymore. I'm going back to Linux, especially now that I don't game much and Valve have lifted Linux gaming to such a high level.

Ironically, paradoxically and/or hypocritically in my role as CTO I've just made the switch from on premise Exchange to 365 for my (Microsoft-heavy) organization with plans to move more stuff to the cloud. Means, ambition and motives are very different between my personal and my professional situation.

As of right now, it's not clear whether this change is to be limited to current and future "Windows Insider flights" or be rolled out to public Windows 11 Pro builds - the changelog notes are quite ambiguous as written. It should be noted that joining the Windows Insider program requires a M$ account anyway, so it's possible that this is insider-only and aimed at collecting more accurate info from the program.

There must be an immense amount of value in the data collected by Microsoft Accounts for Microsoft to make a move like this that will, in my estimation, infuriate a significant portion of its SMB customers and/or power users.

Well Microsoft is pivoting into being a cloud services provider, the OS provides ui integrations for these services to make them more compelling, but the thing itself isn't the OS.

I mean, yeah... think about all the data websites go to remarkable lengths to capture about you already, now imagine if they could capture _everything_ your computer does. Do you think they wouldn't? That's the part that really pisses me off, I bought a Windows Pro license to specifically avoid requirements like this, and now I can't anymore.

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."

It lowers the barrier for people to buy into subscriptions and their store environment significantly. Problem is that they will only serve good deals until they have enslaved their users.

Now is the time for a Linux distro that uses NTFS and installs over the top of Windows, leaves all your files where they are, and hooks up WINE to run all your apps.

Wine isn't anywhere near good enough to offer this as part of a mainstream migration.

Yeah I know. It'd be great if it was tho wouldn't it?

Joke's on them! I've had so many MSN, Live, MSDN, MS accounts and lost access to them that now my every email already "exists in the system".

I currently make a living in the MS ecosystem, so I'm stuck with Windows for a while. And I truly do love some of the applications I run and I take for granted the hardware support.

While it's sad, it's not unexpected. It's money just lying on the table. Apple and Google do it [Edit: nevermind, they don't technically require it currently], so MS will do it too. Now we have younger generations that only know walled-gardens and locked down devices. The era of client-side general purpose computing looks like it's a blip in history rather than the dominate trend.

I built a AMD TR 1950X system a few years ago, and it should carry me through 2025 just fine. After that I plan on using Debian Stable to just run Windows11 VMs (I'm assuming by then that there will be some solutions to visualize the hardware requirements that Windows says I don't have).

>Apple and Google do it, so MS will do it too.

None of iOS, macOS or Android require an online account.

I though setting up a new iOS device required an apple account and online connectivity.

Only online connectivity is required, an Apple ID is not. Of course, if you want to use apps you’ll need an Apple ID.

I haven't had an iphone in 4 years. but I remember apple account required to set up the iPhone. Android is the same. I cannot set up my android without a Gmail account.

I've bought a new iPhone every 2-3 years. You can definitely set them up without an iCloud account. The setup wizard assumes you have one and you have to click through a few 'no I don't want to' nags before you can proceed, but it's definitely possible.

If you want apps you still have to sign in with your apple id though.

Starting from Windows 8, Microsoft started to bully consumers. Look at all the "cloud" contents, "tips", telemetry, Microsoft Accounts and advertisements built in Windows. They are for consumer editions only (Home and Pro, and sometimes Pro Workstations I guess?)

Disabling them requires upgrading to Enterprise or Education (basically Enterprise for schools).

Starting from a later Windows 10 feature update, Home users were forced to login their Microsoft account (for MS to steal your data by having you "cloud connected", right?) during OOBE. Now, Windows 11 Pro users were in the list.

I always recommend people to use the Enterprise edition regardless of their usage, even though you have to use illegal copies. This protects you from all these "cloud" stuff and get you back to a Windows 7 like experience.

One of the things on my list is to shed Windows and move to Fedora. Windows will live in VirtualBox forevermore--hobbled and without updates. When I get around to it.

I already live in the linux world for personal computing...But i still have a separate old, windows 10 machine if an occasion calls for windows-only function/app...but i intend on using windows only in a VM-like scenario within my linux machine...So, do you know if running windows 11 as a VM will require this MS account requirement?

No, but my assumption is that Microsoft will back away from this after all the users shout "WTF!?"

I sure hope you are right!

This will only lead to Windows being banned at major corporations as per internal policy requirements.

Good news, however, this could finally be the year of the Linux desktop.

ChromeOS is Linux based and is very popular.

I've been using Linux on my primary machine for 4 years and while I appreciate the customizability, I don't think it'll ever be in a state to be mainstream unless it's a distro pre-installed on popular hardware funded by a large corporation.

How is ChromeOS an alternative if you don't want to use Windows because of its centralized cloud login?

Fun fact: Windows wasn't popular until it was preinstalled on popular hardware funded by a large corporation.

Back in the days when Windows was sold as an add-on to DOS, computers with hard disks would often ship with DOS pre-installed, but not Windows. Microsoft incentivized OEMs to pre-install Windows 3.0 with steep discounts starting in 1990, and it was then and only then that Windows became a worthwhile target for the bulk of developers to develop for.

That's what Windows 11 Enterprise is for! Microsoft values its big enterprise customers far more than it values you, and they will make heroic accommodations for those customers' needs.

There will soon come a time when buying a general purpose computer will need to be done on a big enterprise account -- all "consumer grade" devices will have a signed code path from power on to end-user code -- and they will need an internet connection to download the latest keylist and upload telemetry.

Oh, and buying a general-purpose computer that doesn't have remote backdoors is something only government agencies will be able to do.

Just wait until your computer refuses to let you run certain apps in retaliation for posting your support for social movements unapproved by the government.

Online accounts are not required for Windows Enterprise.

can you buy windows 11 enterprise yet? if so please link. I tried to months ago and was unbake to figure out how. I got a MS chat support going and they said win 11 wasn't available to purchase yet, and only the os that comes shipped by the oem is what can be obtained

Take a course at a community college and your ID card will likely provide for download of all kinds of software at no additional charge.

No but you can pirate it easily. Pirating ms products is always morally right.

Fortune 500s have Office 365 accounts already

How are they going to make this work for people that don’t have an internet connection? They do exist!

They don't care. It literally just halts installation and says "An internet connection is required to proceed". They may end up with a way to let enterprise users do this, but I doubt we'll ever see consumer windows without the requirement again.

I sincerely doubt that kind of stance is sustainable.

https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/how-many-us-househo...

You can find different statistics but they all tell you that I’m the US there are a lot of people that do have a computer but do not have an internet connection.

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