Monday, July 1st 2024
Microsoft Closer to Removing Local Accounts from Windows 11, Removes Help Page on How to Switch to One
Microsoft really wants you to use Windows 11 with an online Microsoft Account. This lets the operating system integrate the single login for Microsoft Store, all the apps on it, Office or 365, Teams, OneDrive, Outlook, and more importantly, put a face to your name (making you and your machine identifiable to it). Some users, particularly power-users, tend to avoid this, by preferring local accounts—an account that's authenticated and maintained locally by the machine. Microsoft is viewed as making it increasingly difficult for users to create local accounts, particularly on the client versions of Windows, such as Windows 11 Home and Windows 11 Pro.
The Windows Setup by default flows you into creating a Microsoft Account, or logging in from one. Over the past several versions of Windows, Microsoft has made it harder, if not impossible, to create a local account during Setup. In what could be a step closer by the company to wean the market off local accounts, Microsoft removed the online Help page that guides users on how to switch from a Microsoft Account to a local one, as Tweaktown found out. The publication dug the page out using the Wayback Machine. Will Microsoft completely remove the ability to create local accounts? We don't know. All versions of Windows 11 and Windows 10 sit on the Windows NT architecture, which requires some form of local accounts. The Microsoft Account itself is layered on top of a local account. So, the ability to create a local account shouldn't go away for those who really want one, but it will be close to impossible for the vast majority of users trained by Google and Apple to have online accounts on their phones.
Source:
Tweaktown
The Windows Setup by default flows you into creating a Microsoft Account, or logging in from one. Over the past several versions of Windows, Microsoft has made it harder, if not impossible, to create a local account during Setup. In what could be a step closer by the company to wean the market off local accounts, Microsoft removed the online Help page that guides users on how to switch from a Microsoft Account to a local one, as Tweaktown found out. The publication dug the page out using the Wayback Machine. Will Microsoft completely remove the ability to create local accounts? We don't know. All versions of Windows 11 and Windows 10 sit on the Windows NT architecture, which requires some form of local accounts. The Microsoft Account itself is layered on top of a local account. So, the ability to create a local account shouldn't go away for those who really want one, but it will be close to impossible for the vast majority of users trained by Google and Apple to have online accounts on their phones.
126 Comments on Microsoft Closer to Removing Local Accounts from Windows 11, Removes Help Page on How to Switch to One
As long as Microsoft does not attempt to actually lock third-party OS out of PC ecosystem outside things like WSL. Considering the brouhaha during the adoption of UEFI over the mere possibility of that, maybe they won't actually dare to do it, for a while longer.
Linux may still for a while be the one-eyed king of the land of the blind, for those who care, of course.
It's been a few years since Ubuntu 7 but it was targeted in a hit piece about incompatibility with office software even though Open Office was kind of the norm on that side.
FF today and there's weird pieces about Ubuntu spying and telemetry, this and that. Doesn't matter if real, people will read something into anything.
Meanwhile, anything Microsoft Store side keeps committing sudoku and eviscerating every shitty Microsoft UWP that I've ever installed after stagnating on "updating" non-updating apps like Calculator and OneNote.
Not even kidding, Microsoft Store is an issue and that means I lose access to the most basic apps that never should have been put there.
Also, the world is currently giving a big middle finger to Adobe because of ToU issues on top of some AI scare. People are openly looking for and talking about alternatives.
I haven't had driver issues on linux but it's just not my environment. Gaming is probably okay now but most days I'm just browsing the web and watching streams.
I'm 1000% certain there's a linux for the casual crowd. Maybe light duty like Alpine.
Remember, all it takes is one squirrely little stitch in linux to get people to adopt it en masse. Valve did an excellent job pushing the usage numbers up through their Steam Deck. Imagine what could happen in the near future if streamers decide to adopt it. It's way closer than it sounds.
I think it's great it exists, but it's not for me, and it's not for 95% of home computer users either. Its market share proves me right.
Microsoft is doing what they are doing, presumably because they have the same feelings, that their capture is tight enough.
Market share or not, experimental attitudes continue to exist. They may not thrive, but they're out there. Somewhere. Just look at forums like this one. :/
The issue with Microsoft is egregious overreach despite public reaction. Win11 should never have been allowed to get to this point. What an atrocity. I still won't touch it.
What's that? Win11G exists without Copilot, telemetry and all the crapware due to geopolitics?
Nope. I've seen that scam before. Not today Satan. :rolleyes:
Not allow me to install offline the product i paid for??? How in the unholy fuck would installing offline even work without an offline acc??? FUCK THEM! FUCK THIS!
They don't want my money fair and square? Ook!!! I know a guy who knows a guy! I'll Jack Sparrow them into oblivion!
These "geniuses" will stop at nothing.
I hope the EU destroys them for this POS move.
I don't even care about the privacy situation anymore; I've long realized that there's no true privacy in this hyper-connected world that we live in, only degrees of privacy.
And I'm going to assume here that you do choose some degree of it, you protect information you don't want out there. We all do. Everyone has something to hide.
So really, the privacy situation is what it always was: you're guarding the information you don't want out in the open. Like your sex life, your finances, and various other personal things. Just because social media exist and phones exist, doesn't mean privacy is gone. We each choose how to use those services and devices. Some people throw everything online. Those same people then get targeted by certain actors. And those same people then get a reality check.
Just because the masses contain stupid people, doesn't mean its a norm. Consider also the general state of human hypocrisy. What we say we think, is generally not what we really think :) What you see online and what people post there for all to see, is there because they want it there. They're selling themselves or gather attention. So how much privacy is really lost if all you read online should be viewed as a lie? We love living a fake reality after all. Its escapism.
You can do a LOT in terms of privacy without going that extreme. Even just cutting out social media makes you safe for the overwhelming majority of nonsense you can get right now. It really comes down to: internet is for content consumption and not generation. Stick to that rule and things get easy.