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Comment by lewantmontreal | Hacker News Reader

I’ve noticed it’s better to install Windows without a connection to the internet. There will still be some packaged in software you might want to rid of, but at least not the advert apps like duolingo, candy crush and netflix. Then disable automatic installation of apps via Windows update and clean it up before allowing it to the internet.

Actually reminds me of how you absolutely should not install Windows XP with the ethernet cable plugged in back when more home computers were directly connected to the Internet. That thing would be chock full of worms within minutes, so you had to first install a software firewall while offline.

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Installing without internet connection also has the major benefit that it allows you to use a local user account rather than forcing you to signup for an online Microsoft/hotmail/.. account

And even if you want to use an online account for e.g. OneDrive you do not want to login when installing windows because it names your user folder to an abbreviated version of your email.

You can install it with local user, it just takes more time and they will nag you so you have to press ESC a couple of times. Most people don't know about this and are coerced into creating MS account, this isn't even some sort of dark pattern, it's a completely fraudulent practice.

I just installed from a freshly downloaded Win 10 ISO, and there was either no option for a local account, or I just haven't triggered the way to escape creating an online account. At that point, there simply was nowhere to click on the UI, I had the choice of either creating one on the spot, or using one that already exists, and that's it. Really hated the experience.

This very exact specific occurrence happened to me a while back and made me so livid I cold powered off the entire machine, downloaded Linux onto a flash drive from a different laptop, and have been running happily since. The forced auto reboot install of updates really pissed me off and then this forced ms account on install was the last straw. Haven’t used a Microsoft product personally ever since.

It's a jarring experience. They always seem to know better, and as the years went on, they made harder and harder to properly use the system as a power user.

Rufus (the ISO to Flash Drive app) recently added a feature to create a local user right into the installation media, remove telemetry, and remove windows 11 hardware restrictions. It's worked like a charm so far.

Holy shit, that’s awesome. Already loved Rufus but this is a whole other level.

Didn't they remove the option to use a local account? https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-11-requiire-microsoft...

Nope.

Simply unplug the internet cable, works in the latest windows 11.

I did not want to connect the laptop to the WiFi at all to risk an online account. When googling it, there was a video that stated I needed to:

Shift+F10 to open CMD.exe => taskmgr => terminate "Network Connection Flow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3NPilpkC8M

Did it work? Curious cats want to know.

This was also my experience doing my last install, it caused me to:

- make it a priority to avoid Windows and run Linux instead whenever possible.

- strongly criticize Microsoft and Windows on my personal blog

- systematically list the bad stuff Microsoft is doing to ruin Windows, including but not limited to their dismantling of the taskbar with Windows 11.

The mandatory registration of a Microsoft account and included ad-ware is an extremely nasty thing about Windows.

In my experience Windows installs all the bloatware after first Internet connection anyway.

I usually set up my Windows the following way:

1. Offline install. 2. Turn on Internet and leave it alone for a hour or two. It'll install all drivers from Microsoft and also it'll install bloatware. 3. Install additional drivers if needed. I install Nvidia ones because Microsoft drivers are not up to date, but that's optional. 4. Go to Settings/Apps and remove all bloatware and other bundled software I don't need.

That's quite a procedure, but it allows me to have more or less stable and debloated system.

With some laptops it might be necessary to use manufacturer-provided drivers instead of Microsoft ones. I don't really know what's the rule of thumb here.

> Actually reminds me of how you absolutely should not install Windows XP with the ethernet cable plugged in back when more home computers were directly connected to the Internet. That thing would be chock full of worms within minutes, so you had to first install a software firewall while offline.

So same as windows 10 then, just a different vendor for the malware?

I'm in no way going to say win10 is a bastion of security but I don't know anyone who has had a virus with 10 compared to ENDLESS battles from back in the day helping fix friends/families infected PCs.

Not sure if people have just gotten smarter, or some of the default stuff is better, or both - but it is a markedly different time than before.

You have Microsoft Defender to thank for that. You now basically have an antivirus bundled in the OS, with the widest install base, that has become shockingly good.

WinXP was vulnerable to a lot of remote exploits out-of-the-box. If you just connected WinXP to the internet after a new installation (and without SP2 and up-to-date patches) and walked away for 24 hours, you could expect it to be infected by the time you got back. This was, of course, a much bigger issue back when we were directly connecting our PC's to the internet with dial-up. WinXP behind a properly configured router isn't at risk in the same way.

Yes DMZs are unsecure. Not really specific to windows as any software with an unpatched CVE in a DMZ can be attacked

Not quite. It needs to be an RCE vulnerability that can be used remotely against a system without user interaction. XP had a lot of those. There aren't a lot of those now. Afaik, most RCE's nowadays require a user to download a hostile file or view a hostile site.

It's part of why we don't get worm attacks all that often like we used to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(computer_worm)

> The worm spreads by exploiting a buffer overflow discovered by the Polish security research group Last Stage of Delirium[5] in the DCOM RPC service on the affected operating systems, for which a patch had been released one month earlier in MS03-026 and later in MS03-039. This allowed the worm to spread without users opening attachments simply by spamming itself to large numbers of random IP addresses. Four versions have been detected in the wild.[6] These are the most well-known exploits of the original flaw in RPC, but there were in fact another 12 different vulnerabilities that did not see as much media attention.[7]

Fair, although SMB has had a few noteworthy ones recently. And lets not forget log4j

I think the point is that MS install adware and spying viruses on your computer with Windows 10 instead if hackers.

Viruses nowadays are most commonly uses to establish botnets and steal credentials, so virus writers try to not disrupt the host and to remain as invisible as possible. The one exception being ransomware.

I mean unless you’re physically connecting to your modem and using your WAN Ip as your computer IP, Who exactly is sending you the worms when you plug in the ethernet?

Microsoft. Stealing personal information, forcing ads into the OS, installing software without permission, hijacking private network and computing resources for profit or for state actors, uploading user files and deleting them from the system, and making the system unresponsive are all things we used to call malware.

> I’ve noticed it’s better to install Windows without a connection to the internet.

I have a Windows 7 PC installed like this... and never connected it to the internet. It runs two single players games and works like a charm. Very secure also :)

This tool does not seem to be about windows preloaded software, but programs from various vendors that may be installed by users

The adware mentioned in the bloatware section are installed by Windows on Windows installation. May wary between locales.

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