Microsoft blocks Windows 11 workaround that enabled local accounts

"Our Computer"

This personnel computer

This is awfully deep. We live in a society.

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I switched to Bazzite not long after the Recall AI announcement, shrinking my Windows partition to leave it for just VR stuff which currently doesn't work well outside of Windows, at least on my system. It's pretty great! Not perfect, but the problems I have on Bazzite are similar enough in quantity and degree to problems I had on Windows that I've basically switched out one set of weird OS quirks for another. The big difference is now I don't have to think about the OS being disrespectful corporate spyware.

Same here. I'll pirate the security updates for the next 3 years and then switch. Fuck Windows 11 and fuck Microsoft.

You can still block it easily with the command prompt (Shift+F10 during the install) as mentioned. But don't let that stop you from switching to Linux if you feel like it.

But apparently you DO need an Apple ID to access an Apple Notes file that was shared to your Android by your crazy ex who doesn't know that without an iPhone you won't be able to read their undoubtedly unhinged, rambling guilt trip. Thanks Apple!

Something tells me that could easily change.

its a xmas miracle

This☝️person knows what we are talking about!

Pretty sure most windows users hate their OS right back.

As soon as I started doing that, I hopped distros.

well, perhaps. but there are a plethora of escape routes if/when it gets too bad for them.

true, but you're not fighting malice or greed, you're fighting laziness and arrogance. diffeeent vibe.

At least Linux isn't trying to milk you for its own gain.

If I understand correctly from the article, you have to enter ‘OOBE\BYPASSNRO’ in command prompt during installation to prevent it from asking to connect to internet. If that’s the only way to set up a local account, that’s hardly an accessible option.

There's no clear path from getting the computer out of the box just setting it up without internet. If you call the manufacturer and they know what the hell they're doing they'll walk you through doing the OOBE no internet fix. It just needs to be an option in the damn operating system. The fact that they're hiding it from you is unconscionable.

It was not an option one week ago when i tested it. Maybe because I was in WiFi range and Microsoft assumed you have to know the password to at least one of them to pass the wifi screen. No skip button. But could create a new account as unverified using gmail address.

Does emulating via waydroid not work for android games? I don't really do android games so not sure how well waydroid performs for that type of stuff - but it seems okay for a few android apps i've tried.

Why do IT teams think being able to snoop any users screen is a good thing? Leave folks alone. Get authorized key consent to SSH into their box iff necessary.

This is why I only work with BYOD operations…

You can also use Steam itself to run external launchers via proton! Might not be the best way, but it was super easy for a noob like me to figure out.

Let’s me play ffxiv (non steam) and bnet games quite easily!

Was a removed for me to get HOMM3 set up. But in the end I got it working. Would certainly be more plug n play on Windows, but I don't mind a little inconvenience if it means I'm not supporting from fuckass tech bro that wants my data.

Probably a minimal environment that streams the desktop to you. Must be the smallest windows install on a local PC ever.

Anti Commercial-AI license

No, only a "normies" exploit involving using a defunct email address is getting blocked.

Unless I missed something, the article states as follows

Another method of bypassing the account lockdown still exists. You simply have to enter OOBE\BYPASSNRO in the command prompt during the Windows 11 setup process, which allows you to skip the connection to the Internet and thus also the link to a Microsoft account.

Mm hmm.

In them days Linux was even more about messing around with configurations and finding workarounds. It came on floppies, and as it loaded it made these kind of grinding, farting sounds. We would install it with an onion tied to our belt - which was the style at the time.

Hahaha! I've been dabbling in live USB thumbdrive copies of various flavors of Linux to see which one I want to go to for a while. Did a few years back and thought, "you know, my time is worth something to me, maybe I'll give Windows a go, 10 seems pretty stable."

Booted up Debian Cinnamon, couldn't get two-finger right click to work on the Synaptics config out of box, it had a few arbitrary prefs for whatever the devs decided people would probably use. Tried Debian Gnome. It had trackpad settings that were more in line with what I expected... Not giving up, but it did make me pause, because I know one can reconfigure the trackpad driver under the hood, but did I really want to jump down the rabbit hole of bespoke shellscripts again just so my audio driver correctly wakes from sleep (if it can even successfully sleep)?

Other funny to figure out, the computer has iGPU and dGPU, both were active and the battery life was maybe 2 hours. Another thing to figure out with bespoke configurations.

So it's like, Windows and Linux (and lesser, MacOS) pain is definitely there, it is just kinda what kind of pain do you want to subscribe to? Linux pain will probably only occur during initial setup and maybe every few years when a major OS release comes out. MacOS pain is even more rare, unless a major OS release comes out with something you don't like and you have to find where in the OS frameworks the feature is to disable it, if they have hooks in which to do. Windows pain is....every Tuesday.

"Oh here's a new lock screen weather widget"

"Oh cool, I can get on board with that!"

Next week:

"Oh, here's a new stocks and news widget to go along with the weather."

"Hold on there buddy, I didn't sign up for the first and you've pushed two more? Time to shut those two off. Oh, it's all or nothing, thanks! Nothing it is."

"Don't worry, we'll reinstall Dev Home next week and flag it a system app so you can't uninstall it, and then we'll force Copilot to be present, and then we're going to screw with the start menu, and then we're going to delete WordPad, and reinstall all those Office/cloud 365 shim apps and and and." That was like, last month.

The IoT LTSC does not have this requirement. Or a USB made in Rufus can have it disabled.

In games its on par except a couple niche situations with rootkits and other anti user solutions afaik.

Not if a game runs with EAC. I'm aware there IS a variant of EAC for Linux, but quite a few games I got and enjoy won't boot up on Linux because they won't implement the EAC variant for it.

Microsoft would like to introduce you to EntraID.

That's the enterprise version of this.

Almost 30 years and still basically useless.

Oh sure, sure. My point is that Google asked for the same thing as MS, and I mindlessly gave it to them.

I'll look into degoogling at some point.

They did mostly. It is still possible (but can be extremely frustrating if your timing is off by fractions of a second) to disconnect a LAN cable or USB-LAN adapter (DON'T sign into a wifi network) at the right moment and cause it to ask for a name for the user account. I have taken to calling this the "AA Pullout Method." My co-workers and myself are crass de-gens and sometimes have to trade off trying to get it to work and made it a game to see who can get it to work in the least amount of tries. Get the "title" of "pullout king." Did you need to know this? No, but it is no less dumb than the steps below and attempts needed to just make a fucking local user on Windows 10/11 (though 10 seems to be much easier to get around).

You have to first fail at signing into a MS account. Which you can just type the letter "a" instead of an actual email address (seriously don't have to type anything else, not even adding "@email.whatever" is needed) as if you are just using a preexisting account and not pick the "create a MS account." It will then ask for your MS account password and just again type the letter "a." It will then give a "Oops something went wrong" message. This is where the unplugging the cable is needed. The timing is that you need to pull the cable basically right as you let go of your left-click on the "Retry" button. So like if you are using a regular mouse it won't register that you clicked the button until the moment you have lifted your finger. But if you fail to time it just right, it will either just cycle back to the "Sign into existing MS account" screen where you used the first "a" instead of an email. Or it will give a different message about not being online and take you back to the "Let's get you online" network screen with your LAN adapter and wifi networks. However if you time it correctly, it will just ask for the name of the user and password.

If you forget to plug the LAN cable back in after getting the "name of user" screen, it will give the screen about not being online. If you are able to get the local user name screen, just plug your LAN back in and it will just ask the rest of the setup questions like normal. And you now have a local user account. But again, shit is super touchy about the timing. So it could take quite a number of retries to get it to work. If you have ever used the PSP/PS3/PS Vita "Hen" non-permanent "custom firmwares," then you might know the struggle (as the hack may fail to launch until entirely too many attempts if you haven't used them).

Never heard of it being patched so can't tell. Btw was the old one with administrator command prompt patched too?

I believe it wasn't the case in the past. Well that sucks. I'm glad I don't use Windows for anything except gaming now

You ain't wrong but I'd just run it on my NAS

They say, until they start crying about "unsecured devices" that they assume all contribute to malware footprints despite all of the hold-outs I know having comprehensive A/V solutions lmfao

don't you need one at that point to tie the windows activation to your account?

Granted it was a few months ago, but I seem to recall a command prompt keystroke and a command line command that allowed skipping online install during setup.