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Windows 10 Will Start Pushing Users To Use Microsoft Accounts (mashable.com) 162

Posted by msmash from the old-habits-die-hard dept.
Microsoft is getting ready to annoy its faithful Windows 10 user base with yet another prompt. From a report: This time, Microsoft wants Windows 10 users to switch from using a local account to their online Microsoft account. As first noticed by the outlet Windows Latest, the most recent Windows 10 update Release Preview includes some information about new notifications added to the operating system intended to make users switch from their local account to their Microsoft account. "New! This update starts the [roll out] of account-related notifications for Microsoft accounts in Settings > Home," reads the update, originally from the official Windows blog, which then lays out its case for using a Microsoft account.

Windows 10 Will Start Pushing Users To Use Microsoft Accounts More | Reply

Windows 10 Will Start Pushing Users To Use Microsoft Accounts

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  • Sure, let someone else be the gatekeeper (Score:5, Informative)

    by 0xG ( 712423 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @10:48AM (#64407632)

    to you own computer.

    My wife - who tends to always forget her password - has a windows 11 laptop.
    Microsnot wanted her to fill in a multi-page application form, mail it to microsnot, and wait two weeks(!) for them to provide a reset. I was dumbfounded. To access your own computer!

    Fortunately, i had created local accounts when it was new, because i knew that would happen.

    • One word:

      "Software as a service/subscription"

      Okay, that's more than one word but if Microsoft says it's one word then you have no option but to believe them because when you run Windows, they *own* you!

      (Smug grin, having been a satisfied Linux user for decades).

      • One word:

        "Software as a service/subscription"

        Okay, that's more than one word but if Microsoft says it's one word then you have no option but to believe them because when you run Windows, they *own* you!

        (Smug grin, having been a satisfied Linux user for decades).

        One word would be "SaaS".

    • And what will you do if you forget the login to those local accounts?
    • My wife - who tends to always forget her password - has a windows 11 laptop.

      She didn't write it down? That was too difficult for someone who always forgets their password?

    • Re:Sure, let someone else be the gatekeeper (Score:4, Informative)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @01:53PM (#64408354)

      Microsnot wanted her to fill in a multi-page application form, mail it to microsnot, and wait two weeks(!) for them to provide a reset. I was dumbfounded. To access your own computer!

      No. Microsoft wanted that to access her Microsoft account. Something that could provide her access to all her computers, encryption keys, online software, cloud sync'd files, purchases. ... YOU WANT THIS TO BE DIFFICULT.

      She could have just as easily nuked her windows install and started another account. Her access to her computer is not locked away by Microsoft.

      • Another reason to not tie all that together into one account. Ie, first off, don't use the cloud. OneDrive is still optional and worthy of a global boycott (I'm shouting at the clouds here and they ignore my shaking fist :-). Don't purchase shit from a Microsoft Account, don't use the Microsoft Store, that should be a no-brainer! Use a separate account for each and every computer (a no brainer), and device (also no brainer but harder for some to understand). The snag are the people who insist on sharin

    • They should have handed over the keys to everything the moment they were asked. At most, they should have said, "You promise this is yours?" And if the answer is, "Yes", that should be the end of the discussion. After all, it's her computer.

      Jesus. Write down the password and put it somewhere else.

    • I've got Windows 11 and I don't have a Microsoft Account. I think newer W11 users will be required to get an account though, but maybe there's still a way around it. It's a really bad idea though. Microsoft is trying to copy Apple, but not even Apple requires an Apple account on Macs.

      Possible use the account only temporarily, make a local account be admin, then swap over.

  • At what point can this be a choice? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @10:50AM (#64407636)

    Microsoft's push for using their account rather than a local account is a bit aggressive. Good lord, the hoops you have to jump through on a new load to get a local account set up. Can't they just make it an up-front choice on first boot / on setup, and be done with it? I know they want, desperately, to have all user data sent to their mothership, but some of us just want to use our god damned computer for our own work and don't need all data sent to Microsoft. I have my home backup. I have Backblaze. I don't need Microsoft for backups. I don't need Microsoft monitoring my every keystroke. While I understand that there can be advantages for some use cases, this mostly feels like a data-grab, and an attempt to lock you in to the Microsoft cloud. Having started to extricate myself from the Apple ecosystem, the last thing I want to do is lock myself into another one.

    If not for a couple use-cases that still aren't as nice as they could be in Linux (Digital Audio Workstation / Particular writing software), I'd stick with it 100% of the time, rather than only 50-60% of the time. This type of anti-user policy is a constant headache if you don't want to use the system in precisely the way THEY want you to use it. While most may not care, some of us do actually want to use our computers for our own work, and see little to no value in having that work automagically shared with some corporate behemoth just so they can train their shitty AI on it and keep me locked into their structure when it comes time to upgrade again.

    • I know they want, desperately, to have all user data sent to their mothership, but some of us just want to use our god damned computer for our own work and don't need all data sent to Microsoft. I have my home backup. I have Backblaze. I don't need Microsoft for backups. I don't need Microsoft monitoring my every keystroke.

      They do this because they can. They know even if some people grumble, the inertia effect means that they will grumble, and continue to take the knee to Microsoft.

      It's BOHICA day every day with Microsoft, and the faithful won't change.

      • But m'ord, the peasants are grumbling.

        Are the peasants armed?

        No, m'lord.

        Then fuck'm.

        But some of the solders were born to peasants, m'lord.

        What!? Send those peasant borns off on the crusades!

        But m'lord, I am armed as well, and we're all alone in here...

  • I might be ok with this iff... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @10:51AM (#64407640)
    The opt out is a giant red button labeled "Fuck off, Microsoft, you useless sacks of shit".
  • Megacorp/Monopoly to try and push it's users, rather than please them. Who's really surprised?

  • Thinks they are Apple.

    We use Windows because we're not Fanatics, but because we kind of have to.

    You know its bad when your 85 year old Father-In-Law keeps asking about Linux.

    • Thinks they are Apple.

      We use Windows because we're not Fanatics, but because we kind of have to.

      That's pretty sad, but it's part of the culture. It's like you are being forced to drive Yugo's because someone decided that Yugo's are the shitz.

      But as they say, no one's ever lost their job for specifying Microsoft.

      You know its bad when your 85 year old Father-In-Law keeps asking about Linux.

      Funny you should mention that. I've set Grammas and Grandpas on Linux after they became tired of Windows and it's not ready for primetime abilities. Even my SO back in the day of W8, she refused to use the touchscreen computer I bought her because she had a shoulder operation after a couple

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        I've set Grammas and Grandpas on Linux after they became tired of Windows and it's not ready for primetime abilities.

        Until the grandmother asks you "Now how do I put my CDs on my iPhone? Under Windows, I put the CD in the drive and started iTunes."

  • Boys and well--the rest of yuh, At some point your gonna hafta reaahlize that this is all for y'betterment. And your CON-tinued efforts at removal of god's grand plan of account consolidation are gonna be met with serious punishment from ya betters. Now I'd get on board to beleivin' on that cloud is the only way or otherin there's goan be hell ta pay!

  • IANAL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:05AM (#64407678) Journal

    ...but isn't compelling customers to connect to your ecosystem to simply use your product (particularly when this wasn't part of the original terms of service) pretty obviously an anticompetitive violation of their antitrust agreements/evasions?

    • Re:IANAL (Score:4, Informative)

      by HBI ( 10338492 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:11AM (#64407700)

      If Microsoft had actually been put under a perpetual consent decree around 2000, this would be true. However, they weren't.

      Microsoft is not under any real antitrust surveillance.

      It was over in 2011. [microsoft.com]

      • >"Microsoft is not under any real antitrust surveillance."

        Based on what they continue to do, almost forcing hardware vendors to include MS-Windows on all their boxes, they should be.

        • Except they aren't forcing anyone to do so. It's end users forcing that practice, and most providers out there offers non-MS alternatives nowadays. Heck the OS isn't even OEM discounted anymore. You literally recover the full price of a retail Windows license if you opt out of it. Seriously go jump on Dell's website and pick something like a G15 gaming laptop and watch the price jump around by $200 as you do the highly complex task of clicking the button to select Ubuntu instead of Windows 11.

          • Last I checked, they are still withholding their best pricing unless the vendor agrees to lots of conditions about pre-install types and numbers.

            Yes, some vendors/manufacturers will let you recover the MS-Tax, but not on all models, and certainly never on anything sold in a physical store. And certainly not all vendors, either.

    • ...but isn't compelling customers to connect to your ecosystem to simply use your product (particularly when this wasn't part of the original terms of service) pretty obviously an anticompetitive violation of their antitrust agreements/evasions?

      No. Antitrust agreements are related to other products in competing markets. There's no one out there offering a market for online accounts for your Windows login. It's not anticompetitive to require it.

      In fact it's pretty much becoming the norm to require accounts these days. Especially when so much functionality is tied to online services (including advertised functionality of Windows).

  • Sure (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 )

    A Microsoft account connects Windows to your Microsoft apps.

    Thanks but I felt perfectly 'connected' to my apps when they were files on my Harddisk and click away on my Start Menu; I don't need any more help being connected thanks, and importantly I don't need you trying to convince me my copy of $APP-2013 isnt good enough every-time I open it.

    The account also backs up all your data and helps you to manage your subscriptions.

    By which you mean add to them be constantly subject to pressure to move up to some higher tier? Because I don't know help managing in any other sense and neither does anyone else unless you've gone out of your way to make thing

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by corporateminion ( 1066292 )

      Agreed. I recently bought a new machine for home lab purposes that came with Windows 11. OK, I'll use it as one of many VMs atop ProxMox so I'll finish installing it, make a recovery USB and register it with my "Microsoft Account." Only when I tried to log into my "Microsoft account" which uses a Yahoo email as the identity name, I got an error saying the account was locked because of prior password failures. I haven't needed to log into Microsoft for 2-3 years so the failures weren't due to MY attempts

  • ... towards a mandatory subscription model?

  • The Good News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Cat ( 19816 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:10AM (#64407694)

    I escaped. I no longer need Windows for anything. Including:

    1. Adobe Creative Cloud (I use free equivalents)
    2. Quicken (I wrote my own equivalent).
    3. Games, including Microsoft's OWN games (they run smooth with all the graphics options turned on with Wine, Proton, Lutris, Steam, etc.)
    4. Development (nobody develops anything on Windows anyway)
    5. Writing (Emacs for an author is incredibly powerful)
    6. Video creation (faster and more stable on Linux)

    All those billions spent on lock-in

    I suppose I could keep a potato around with the billywindows installed on it, but it can't disrupt my work or interfere with my schedule any more. It can't destroy my work either. I also don't have to endure six progress bars every time I try to do something.

    As far as this little gray duck is concerned the OS wars are over, and Microsoft lost huge. Good riddance.

    • Re:The Good News (Score:5, Informative)

      by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:23AM (#64407730)

      That's awesome you escaped "Microshaft's" tyranny. I mostly agree with you.

      1. Affinity Photo is good if you still need to live on Windows. The Affinity suite offers a one-time fee opposed to Adobe nickel and diming. For open source GIMP is OK, Krita is awesome, Blender is awesome. Is there a good alternative to Substance Painter?
      2. I don't use Quicken so I'm not locked in.
      3. Not all work under Wine / Proton but more and more do which is fantastic.
      4. Except us game devs who, you know, have to ship Windows or Console games. =P
      5. I'm more a Vim person but Emacs is great too. OpenOffice / LibreOffice is great.
      6. Curious what you use? OpenShot, Kdenlive, DaVinci Resolve, something else?

      But yeah, Win10 is probably the last MS OS for me. Games are really the only thing holding me from switching my daily driver over to Linux and frankly with the way MTX greed has infected most new games I'm perfectly happy playing older games.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by GeorgeY ( 9486967 )
        Just to add my experience:
        3. Older games work better under WINE/Proton - for example, you cannot run most of the Sierra city-building games (such as Pharaoh) or old RPGs such as Might & Magic 6-8 under Windows now, but there are no problems under Linux. Most of the new games work fine too, unless they use something like Denuvo, in which case I won't be buying it anyway.
        6. Cinelerra (GG Infinity or HV versions) works great for my Video-editing needs.

        In addition, I have dual boot and boot into Windows
    • Development... And yet Visual Studio is still one, if not, the best development environment for any platform. Nope Visual Code is still far from equivalent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      The only reason I still have a windows machine is for the exceedingly rare game that doesn't work on proton/steam, and more importantly, Fusion 360, although browser-based OnShape apparently is pretty good if you have a computer/GPU that can make it run smoothly (they both use the same licensed "kernel" that almost all CAD software uses)

      • The only reason I still have a windows machine is for the exceedingly rare game that doesn't work on proton/steam, and more importantly, Fusion 360, although browser-based OnShape apparently is pretty good if you have a computer/GPU that can make it run smoothly (they both use the same licensed "kernel" that almost all CAD software uses)

        You may want to give Plasticity a try. Depending on your use cases it may not replace Fusion, but it's free to try so checking it out will only cost you some time. Its advantages are that a) it's not subscription software - you pay for a license and keep using the software however long you want, and b) it's available for Linux. If it meets your 3D needs then you can be an owner instead of a renter, and you'll still be able to use it when you ditch Windows and install a real operating system.

        I haven't tried

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Fusion 360 apparently works pretty well under WINE, although I haven't tried it yet. There's a snap available:
        https://github.com/Thermionix/... [github.com]

        • Yeah I've played that game. It breaks every week or two, when Autodesk releases a new update, and then you're stuck without a solution while you wait for an unpaid developer to fix it sometime in the next month

  • And post, commenter, newsreporters, workers etc.

    Most will whine about this for a few months, but no one will run out on the streets protesting it, despite 90% of the world depending on it, and they know this, they know their userbase - those who use windows in the first place are locked into their ecosystem.

    And you won't do a thing about it.

    Sure, you're the nerds reading News for Nerds, so you might wave your angry finger at the screen doing a keyboard warrior thing, try Linux for 14 days and then tell ever

    • Re:Microsoft already know you as a user (Score:5, Interesting)

      by The Cat ( 19816 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:19AM (#64407722)

      I've been using Linux as my daily driver for 30 years. Oh sure, I had to dual boot from time to time to use the very last of the straggling applications, until I finally found quality equivalents for all of them.

      Intuit, Adobe and all the incumbents spent billions upon untold BILLIONS to keep users like me trapped. And they lost.

      Games run like a Swiss clock factory on Linux.

      And as an added bonus: no progress bars, obscure meaningless error messages or popups.

      They'll wring the last few cents out of their accidental deal with IBM, and then Linux and its equivalents will sweep DOS aside for good. The world will be a much better and happier place.

      • I've been using Linux as my daily driver for 30 years. Oh sure, I had to dual boot from time to time to use the very last of the straggling applications, until I finally found quality equivalents for all of them.

        Intuit, Adobe and all the incumbents spent billions upon untold BILLIONS to keep users like me trapped. And they lost.

        Games run like a Swiss clock factory on Linux.much better and happier place.

        No they don't.

        And the fact you've been a daily Linux user for 30 years kinda tells the most of your story, you're a savvy user, you know your stuff. Mrs. And Mr. Jones doesn't know the first thing about Linux. And those who do, doesn't really queue up to help them either, because most of the savvy Linux users have grown old and tired of constantly helping that audience that Windows is targeted at, namely regular people who don't want to get an Operating System as an hobby, they just wanna run what the neigh

        • Nobody cares if the games run natively. What they care about is whether they work correctly.

          I agree that the compatibility is not perfect, and it is slightly irritating to have to try both PlayOnLinux and Lutris to find out where some games will run. But there are compensations for some users.

          Specifically, many older games will run on Linux that won't run on Windows at all, even with patches.

          If you only play new games, and you do nothing E else with your computer but that and possibly running some other sof

          • And that's my point.

            There's always a "but..."

            And that but seems to hit me more often than the exception.
            Everything has to run - period.

    • Re:Microsoft already know you as a user (Score:5, Interesting)

      by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:43AM (#64407810)

      You are absolutely right 99% of people are too complacent to switch.

      However, you are forgetting that over time Linux users AND open source users are growing. i.e. For me 7-Zip killed the commercial file archivers (pkzip, winrar, etc.)

      More and more software works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Switching from proprietary vendor lock-in to open source alternatives (where it makes sense) is how to get people to switch. OpenOffice / LibreOffice, Blender, Krita already provide great alternatives.

      The harder MS shoves their agenda down everyone's throats the easier it is to finally come across "the straw that broke the camel's back." Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but maybe next year, or in 5 years, or in 10. Cue "THIS year is the year of the Linux desktop". /s It starts with us Techies who are tired of supporting MS's adware crap. Eventually we just don't care about MS. I'm already running Linux under a dedicated spare box and under a VM in my daily driver. In time we'll make the switch permanent.

      For me, games have been the biggest reason I haven't made my daily driver Linux but with the new games coming out there is less and less "need" to stay on Windows. The more and more they add an in-game MTX store to games the less interested I am in them.

      Valve is also doing a great job of having more and more games work under Linux. Support them when you can.

      The best way to "proselytize" Linux is NOT to say anything but just to use it. Start small: 1 application here, another application there. Suggest open source alternative at work. So who cares if MS wins this battle (Win10) or that battle (win11); eventually they are going to lose the war as more and more people get fed up with SaaS and switch to open-source alternatives. From there is easier to eventually switch to Linux. The best way to "win the war" is 1 application at a time. Time is on our side. Linux already "won" on the Supercomputer and Mobile (Android) space. Desktop is next.

  • When people bought Microsoft Windows--was this what they bought?
  • It's competitive for the true believers, and has been since the 2000s, but for those with deep ties to proprietary software (virtually 95% of society) we have no choice but to use Windows as Wine and even VMs are actually against the EULA of anti cheat or drm in various software. Microsoft knows it can hurt Windows users, and they know that they can bribe proprietary software manufacturers to lie about "insufficient demand" for Linux. The EUs attempts are useless, and Both Trump and Biden enjoy proprietary

  • Could be worse (Score:3)

    by VampireByte ( 447578 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:22AM (#64407728) Homepage

    Headline could have read "Windows 10 Will Start Pushing Users To Use Microsoft Access"

  • Lack of tact (Score:5, Insightful)

    by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:27AM (#64407746)
    Microsoft is in a situation where they're so big they can afford to piss off plenty of users for no reason. That doesn't mean they should. There's no real good reason to do stuff like this.

    The way they should handle this is to do a better job of explaining the benefits of using an MS account (there are some and they do a very poor job of actually explaining what they are) but still provide a clear "I don't want to and never bother me again" option for people who are dead-set on not engaging. Pestering people and forcing the issue does not have a net positive outcome for MS, even if they're so big they can ignore the relatively small number of users they piss off doing it. Even if you assume they have a financial incentive to get people to do this... there are better ways to convince people who might be open to it and not drive off people who never will be. And I say this as someone who has like a dozen devices and I use my MS account on every one of them. Just let people do what they want.

    • Microsoft is in a situation where they're so big they can afford to piss off plenty of users for no reason. That doesn't mean they should. There's no real good reason to do stuff like this. The way they should handle this is to do a better job of explaining the benefits of using an MS account (there are some and they do a very poor job of actually explaining what they are) but still provide a clear "I don't want to and never bother me again" option for people who are dead-set on not engaging. Pestering people and forcing the issue does not have a net positive outcome for MS, even if they're so big they can ignore the relatively small number of users they piss off doing it. Even if you assume they have a financial incentive to get people to do this... there are better ways to convince people who might be open to it and not drive off people who never will be. And I say this as someone who has like a dozen devices and I use my MS account on every one of them. Just let people do what they want.

      Tech corporations have given up on selling users on benefits. Especially corporations with any sort of leverage, like Microsoft has with Windows as the defacto OS for most computers. Instead, they believe that the end-user has no power, and therefore, they can dictate terms to the user. For most, they'll shrug and move on. For some, they'll grumble and move on. Very, very few will actually take steps to avoid doing as they're told, because doing what you're told is just easier than fighting the constant nag

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Well. We are clearly heading into a two-class society: Those slave to MS and those that are not. There are signs some more tech-savvy people have had enough and are doing non-MS just for the sake of doing non-MS. And for a lot of things that actually works nicely. My plans for when Win10 is going out of support is to have one gaming machine with Win11, no email, no web-browsing (except related to the games on it), no MS account, no nothing. I will probably also keep a few no-network Win10 VMs. But that is i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, fortunately, the EU still makes them keep that possibility to use a local account. I guess the possibility of a few billion EUR as fine gives even MS pause. But they are making it harder, and I hope they will trip the alerts pretty soon.

    • Consider how closely you are describing The Matrix.

      There are some significant benefits for humans living in The Matrix rather than the dark hellscape industrial tunnels of "the real world", and even the tribal-rave free-love democratic commune of Zion. With billions of human batteries plugged in, why didn't the Architect and the Agents do a better job of explaining the benefits but still provide a clear "Please eject my physical husk. I want to go live in that depressing sunless cavern only made bearable by

  • Microsoft is incompetent when it comes to managing user credentials, especially when someone has different credentials for different workspaces or companies. Letting MS infect your computer with an MS Account for login can cause a lot of problems. They tend to take over your world. Always have a local account, at least as a backup.

    Also uninstall MS OneDrive so it can't mess up your file system. (You will need to uninstall it again after every major Win 10 update.)

    Microsoft-Uninstall or Disable OneDrive [microsoft.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      MS OneDrive must have been designed by the most fucked up extreme idiots MS could get their hands on. I use it on one company laptop (job end in a few months, I already have handed in my resignation), but the amount of times this utter crap _moved_ files when I wanted copies is staggering. It is like they want to break everything when Azure gets nuked (as it nearly has been in 2023).

  • ... they don't mean "Microsoft Account".

    I was setting up a new laptop for a colleague. We have Office 365 (or whatever it's called today) for company email, etc.., but my work account was not accepted. My work email is clearly what I would call a "Microsoft Account", but apparently Microsoft doesn't. I assume that Microsoft doesn't allow the use of this account because they would really prefer us to use the [expensive] Azure AD, or whatever.

    I was able to set up local accounts after trying "a@a.com" (rejecte

  • How many accounts will be in the name of Mr. Fook Yoo and Mrs. Nona Yobiz.

  • Windows 10 is end of life, move on.

  • or whatever that other operating system is called.

  • Fortunately, that is not needed. Unless MicroShit desires to be in _very_ hot water with the EU, there will always be a work-around.

  • Even more people will start exploring getting a Mac or (when they can't afford it) Linux. Microsoft has got a lot of hubris to deal with, and this isn't going to help them.

    There are some people with a memory, and Microsoft has given those people one more reason to wonder. Let alone mom and dad calling their family helpdesk in a panic "there's a virus on my computer!" I wonder what time it's going to take until all those family helpdesks have had it and are just going to install Linux and tell them it's a di

  • Proof of slowly-speading idiocy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @12:48PM (#64408074)

    There are people with situations and/or applications all over the world (and indeed alll over the USA) that involve computers NOT in any way connected to the internet, but the colleges seem to be churning out huge numbers of brain-dead morons who cannot conceive of a computer that is not connected to the web with a high-speed connection. More and more software is being pumped out that can only be obtained/installed over the web, auto-updates over the web, has licenses tied to the web and thus always needs to phone home via the web, etc. I think I first noticed this divide when Obamacare first began and I saw video of a young geeeky volunteer in "fly-over country" helping some old farmer sign-up. When the young person got to a point in the process and asked the old fellow for his email address, the old guy asked "what's 'email'?", and the young person was flummoxed. It apparently never occurred to him that somebody might not just lack an email account, but might not even know what that was. The people who set it all up, and the people who trained the volunteer, were all from a different world than the old farmer and had apparently not even considered such a scenario. We all have a tendency to presume that the environment WE are in is the normal one, and not see other possible situations - and I think this problem is now severe among the computer folks on university campuses and at the tech companies they end up working in.

    This is IDIOCY. There are plenty of locations with no high speed internet connections (just TRY installing a current version of Windows, or Linux, on a PC with a dial-up modem...) and there are plenty of applications where a high speed connection might be AVAILABLE, but for security reasons no internet connection is permitted. There's also something particularly obnoxious about the idea that the operating system most-easily hacked, yet most-likely to be in use in places like hospitals where critical and private information is handled, is forcing its users to make those systems more-connected to the internet.

    It is increasingly the DUTY of the tech-savvy to introduce friends and loved ones to the worlds of Linux and/or BSD. I've personally had even elderly relatives 100% on Linux for many years, and while the OS still has certain annoying weaknesses (Printing [cough] CUPS? Really? Fire-up a web browser for flakey primitive control of a local printer with shabby support?) supporting non-technical people on it at this point is no worse than Window$.

  • Silly me. I thought Windows was an operating system!
    How foolish of me to expect to own my own computer. Well, since we all all property now, I might as well give up and buy a Mac.
    Or maybe switch to Linux, when it stops sucking.

    • Re:Windows is a service! (Score:4, Informative)

      by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @01:44PM (#64408318)

      >"Or maybe switch to Linux, when it stops sucking."

      It stopped sucking many, many years ago.

      It might not run the particular application YOU want, but that isn't Linux's fault. I have installed Linux hundreds of times on dozens and dozens of different brands/types of machines, and almost never have any problems; probably far less than people installing MS-Windows. It is rock solid, easily updated, under your complete control, easily customized to your own needs, with tons of easily installed open-source software, having excellent performance, and great security and flexibility. No forced crap, no tracking, no harassment, no limits on virtualizing or being virtualized, no user limits, no registration, no cloud dependencies, no forced obsolescence, no bogus "minimum hardware requirements", no update contracts. Being $free is just a bonus.

      If you want to see Linux not suck, probably start with Mint:
      https://linuxmint.com/download... [linuxmint.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mad7777 ( 946676 )

        Yes, I should try again, I suppose. The last time I installed Ubuntu, I was unable to get it to see my networked drives. I gave up.
        Of course, those drives are running on a Windows server, but Samba should be usable anyway, right? I must be doing it wrong...

        • Well, it is not like Linux is magical. Like MS-Windows, or any OS, it will require a bit of configuration. But the last decade has seen so much improvement in Linux. You can expect to plug in your phone to a USB port and it "just work", your network printer will likely be find and "just work", your WiFi will very like "just work", etc.

          I recommend Mint is primarily because it has a more friendly/sane set of defaults than Ubuntu, has native packages for important stuff (LibreOffice, Firefox, etc, with no f

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mad7777 ( 946676 )

            Thanks, I'll definitely keep Mint in mind for when Microshit breaches the obnoxious threshold. I suspect that won't be long now.
            I'm an old IT guy, but not an OS geek. I do want things that "just work", and Ubuntu was just too much pain.

  • IMHO, this is laying the groundwork for a subscription-only business model for the entire OS.

  • My Windows 10 Dell laptop simply NEVER goes on the Internet.

    All data goes in and out via USB key or other media.

    I am not going to waste time dealing with all the crap that comes with Internet connections on a critical computer.

    Microsoft ought to reconsider a lot of things, but like Amazon, once they saturate their user base, they want more garbage to earn more money, just like Amazon, because as a public company, THEY NEVER GROW FAST ENOUGH to satisfy the "markets."

  • No, and NOOOO!

  • Off (Score:2)

    by redback ( 15527 )

    Off is the direction in which they can fuck.

  • ... annoy its faithful Windows 10 user base ...

    In short, what Windows 11 already does.

    Microsoft will not suffer consequences until corporations shift away from the Windows desktop. The lack of privacy on Windows 11 is offset by reduced configuration, which corporate IT likes. Since Chrome browser is the workhorse of the office, the only reason for Windows OS is legacy software/knowledge/UI.

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