lack of local accounting means its no longer your operating system, youre now using a perpetually required service from microsoft.

the walled garden is putting the last bricks in place. hope all you windows fans are ...happy... asking ~~apple~~ microsoft for permission to use your own hardware.

I love how there is an entire group of people who think it’s perfectly normal to “fight” the company that makes the OS they use.

(This message brought to you by the Linux gang.)

Fuck Microsoft

Wouldn’t it be possible to buy a new PC, open the box, and return it right after because you cannot set it up without internet?

If enough people do it, may be PC manufacturers will force Microsoft to add offline setups.

I’ve been debating for a while to switch windows to Linux and see how well it works for my games, thanks Microsoft for finally pushing me to do it!

Only thing keeping me on windows has been games (all other development use is far easier on Linux); but with the work that happened with Steam Deck, many games are now fully functional on Linux.

Use shift f10 and edit the registry.... They aren't disabling that until they have a better solution for autopilot.

May not work for home editions...

That dude who predicted Windows 12 being a cloud OS was probably dead on the money.

Anti Commercial-AI license

On a new install, before powering up, make sure you don't start it up with Ethernet plugged in, when you get to the Wi-Fi connection stage hit Ctrl+f10

Type in

oobe\bypassnro

And press enter. The computer will restart and now when you get to the Wi-Fi connection screen you'll have a like that says "I don't have internet".

Shift+F10

oobe\bypassnro

I’m assuming one would still be able to switch to a local account after installation, but you really shouldn’t need to. What a shit show.

OOBE\BYPASSNRO and fuck Microsoft

Back in the day, using Windows was essentially a long series of fucking around with configurations and trying different workarounds to get things to "go". The actual using of the computer was, in a way, secondary.

Nothing has changed. Many many years ago I bought a used Apple to try it out and was just - astounded at how little I needed to mess with things to get them to do what I wanted. It was all in settings. That's it.

Watching Microsoft leap headfirst into full evil is just like watching the seasons change.

Hm. So are we all the way there to Win 11 not being installable in fully offline machines, or...? Because niche as that application is, it does sound like the start of a use case for a natively compatible Windows alternative from a third party (say, a FreeWin to go with FreeDOS). I know there are or have been some attempts, but... yeah, long term that seems like it would prompt more focus on something like that.

I suppose it's more likely that compatibility layers in other OSs would get there first and more practically, but still. Maybe it's time to move Windows applications from an ecosystem to a standard.

.....aaaand I will never switch to Windows 11.

But then, I'm a hypocrite, because I have to create an account to use Android.