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Comment by roywashere | Hacker News Reader

My son has a personal Windows 11 Lenovo laptop and he is signed in with his personal Microsoft account. The laptop went away for repairs because the touchpad no longer worked. When it returned, it turned out they replaced the main board so the bit locker keys needed to be entered again. These are typically stored in your Micsosoft account only they were nowhere to be found. Some help article on the MS website explained that sometimes it could happen that the keys are migrated to a school account. He only ever used his school account from the Teams app. Sure enough, the bit locker keys were there!!

If he would have graduated or otherwise no longer have access to his school account, he would never have been able to recover the drive. Of course he has his important files in cloud storage anyway but it’s very annoying nonetheless

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All this discussion makes me glad I'm sticking to local logins for the Windows devices I still have to use. Once that option is gone, I guess that's the end of Windows on my devices.

Yup, Microsoft can't even keep straight their account management, yet they are insisting on depreciating the local-only accounts.

I strictly use the local-only setup. I'm sort of OK if they still leave a relatively trivial backdoor to do this, but if they ever flat require an online account, I'm out, hard.

This is partially due to wanting to avoid the hassle and management of yet-another-forking-online-acct-IDGAF-about, but also because I have some machines controlling industrial processes (CNC machines, custom cutting machines, etc.) that I keep entirely off any network for security & safety reasons (yes, moving anything to/from those machines is all sneaker-net; simple, works, and my shop doesn't yet have the scale to justify that kind of networking/security/admin overhead).

I just hope that MS engineering is not stupid or powerless enough to allow MS marketing & MBAs to fully kill off the local account.

This entire attitude of exploiting customers by requiring spurious internet accounts & connections is making me start to think that the Internet is all a huge mistake. If that approach takes over, the world will literally be worse than before the Internet in every important way (and there are some solid arguments that it already is worse).

> they are insisting on depreciating the local-only accounts

That's just.... Insane. This is going to be a disaster. I'm so sorry, Windows users.

You already need to open the command line and disconnect the internet at just the right moment to be able to install windows 11 without an account. You can't start without an online connection, so it's not as as easy as just airgapping the install from the get go (at least on the normal ISO provided by microsoft). I like windows but that was extremely annoying when I needed Win11 in a VM.

> I'm sort of OK if they still leave a relatively trivial backdoor to do this, but if they ever flat require an online account, I'm out, hard

Sounds like a huge pain to deal with. Why not switch to Linux and be done with it? Genuine question.

Primarily because the CAD app I use (Rhino3D) doesn't have a native Linux version ('tho it supposedly runs on WINE), and the CAM software doesn't seem to have anyone running it on Linux.

Plus, at the outset of another startup, we decided to go Open-Source everything, and tried to setup a real-time version of Linux and the CNC control software. All of it supposedly up and running with only a few dozen steps to setup in the people supposedly running it. Despite decades in networking and a bit of Linux experience, I quickly got swamped in the massive undocumented bugs in setup/config/complile, and brought in a guy who had a full-time Linux shop, and who I knew from working with him previously that he was very good. He thought 'it's a new version, but no problem'. A month later, we still had nothing running and the investor/partner pulled the plug. So the swamp of poorly-documented / undocumented / mis-documented hiccoughs literally killed that startup — death by 1000 cuts.

Sure, it is probably better now, 15 years later. But so is this environment, UNLESS they tie it to another online acct.

So, basically, I'm pretty much now in the business of slinging atoms instead of bits, and the overhead is no fun, and just not worth it (yet). Plus, the overhead of working around the MS carp turned out to be pretty small. Just disable the Wireless at the right time in the W11Pro install (I think it is worse in teh Home version).

Games are the main reason for me. I want max performance on my high end gaming pc and I want all the things to just work, including 7.1 surround sound (and atmos later) and HDR and gsync and all my accessories and all the anticheat etc.

I know valve have done great stuff but is it good enough yet to run everything on a AAA game on 4k ultra with hdr, gsync and 144hz?

I left windows for ps4/5 and mac a decade ago but have been toying with the idea of a beefy proxmox server with pci passthrough for a nice windows gaming setup which going by LTT videos is more then capable enough to run AAA game. It’s still windows but at least it’s a vm and your hardware can be shared with a primary Linux desktop vm etc

Not yet at all anticheet just working but you may be surprised. Where Wine works it can even give higher framerates; rarly lower. Whilst I am sure some accessories are better in windows; an old gameport Sidewinder (ms hardware) works better in Linux.

HDR no (although it's progressing). 4K Ultra, gsync and 144Hz on a AAA game, yes. Anti-cheat is going to continue being a problem so long as Microsoft allows these kernel level things and devs keep doing it.

Looks like Valve are actively working on HDR support https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-working-on-hdr-for-linux-gami...

The internet was not designed to deal with money, or security. The internet is designed strictly for information transfer from one place to another with extreme efficiency.

At that, it still excels and is no mistake. The problem is all the people using it for money.

Very accurate and succinct!

Someone said a long time ago that "The love of money is the root of all evil".

I'm not a follower of any particular religion, but that guy sure got it right on that point! Also, the only time he was recorded being violent was when he kicked the money-changers out of the temple.

How do we kick out the money-changers from the Internet?

Back to the roots of info transfer... it seems the tagging devices+apps tell us that we have achieved critical mass of node/relay density for an underground mesh network to work, if we can get enough people to run it . . .

I have no solutions, I'm not even convinced that my statement really encapsulates the problem in a real way. Humans are very difficult. I'm reminded of that speech made by Hugo Weaving's character in The Matrix, about how the original matrix had been very utopian, with everyone living happy and harmonious lives, and the subjects rejected the illusion on a deep enough level to break it. I don't think one should look to Hollywood for good philosophical thinking, but I think he was onto something there.

If I could make one law get passed, I would outlaw algorithms on social media feeds (edit: and search engine results). Let them collect the data, let them target ads. I don't think those things are inherently harmful, or at least, no moreso than the old ads and surveillance.

But the seizing and algorithmic manipulation of the feeds, with the accompanying incentive that the whole thing fails if it doesn't turn a profit, is far more toxic than the gatekeeping of the old media emperors. The great promise of the internet in the 90s was that consumers of internet media would have complete control over our feeds, and get only the things we want and demand.

We have received the exact opposite, because people with money want to put their money to work, rather than work.

It makes me glad I fled to Linux years ago (after a Windows 10 forced, behind-your-back-after-you-locked-your-computer-and-walked-away-thinking-you-wouldn't-notice update restart made me lose some homework) and never looked back. ¦)

That happened to me as well[1]. Exact same reason why I switched to Linux. It took Windows 11 forced online accounts and an integrating one-drive into the OOBE experience to finally wake me up.

[1]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...

This is the main reason I switched to Linux[1]. Online accounts, that are not in your direct control, shouldn't be connected directly to device sign-ins. Changes to the account, or the details of the account can cause loss of data and the ability to sign-in to your own device.

They are pushing more and more people into the perception of renting a experience rather then owning a device. Its great money for me to help people figure all this out though.

[1]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...

Your article resonated with me. The last straw for me was when MS Edge signed me into itself without my input or permission. I don’t know why that was the last straw but I just felt really violated by that. Thankfully Linux on the desktop has come really far. It truly is a breath of fresh air.

Agree. I also shy away from using google or ms oath for third party services. Partly due to privacy but partly paranoid concerns like this

Or use a back-up im not being sarcastic. People with Macbooks have the same issue.

>>the keys are migrated to a school account.

>>Of course he has his important files in cloud storage anyway

So MS's defective key system is pushing people to keep their files in the MS cloud? When a defect in one product pushes users towards are more profitable/addictive product, that isn't a defect. It sound like the plan to keep users hooked into the MS ecosystem is progressing nicely. Once upon a time it was Apple getting its hooks into users while at school. Now it is MS.

Does one still need an MS account to play minecraft?

You can also backup your Bitlocker key to an USB-Stick or external HDD. When installing Win11 they even ask you if you want to back it up on your MS-Account or an external device.

I print mine out and put it in my safe. It's saved me a few times.

security is getting to be worse than what is protects against. its a daily bane, especially for work stuff as everything is locked down extra hard

they tried to simplify it by tying everything to yubi keys, but just this week some things stopped going to the yubikey and wanted me to auth on my phone like we used to instead.

ugh

Cryptolockers at least give you a support email and let you pay to recover your data...

Letting an organization grab control of resources that do not belong to it, without the consent of the actual owners of those resources, is not "security".

"... Of course he has his important files in cloud storage anyway but it’s very annoying nonetheless ..."

That doesn't sound reassuring if the cloud storage is, itself, Microsoft connected ... or even using auth/login mechanisms that connect to the Microsoft account.

It is Google Drive, actually

So good luck with Google customer support when Google's algorithms decide that your login attempt is suspect or your usage violated whatever terms of services they might have buried in their legalize.

Bitlocker is such a freaking user-hostile mess. I know what I'm doing with it and I still screw it up - I have no idea how non-technical people are supposed to have any idea what's going on. They're either totally unprotected or constantly at risk of losing everything even with professional help.

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