Now when trying to activate the OS by attempting to call the phone number for Microsoft Product Activation, an automated voice response says the following: "Support for product activation has moved online.
Linux is this way, guys.
You could always just install Linux Mint and then install the Mint XP theme. No Microsoft Account required.
I installed Mint on my main computer yesterday. _ Super done with Windows! Now I just have to convince my husband to let me install it on his computer, too. 🤔
Such a fucking PITA, as a small IT shop, I don’t want to have to full on fucking go enterprise to keep my users from needing to make Microsoft accounts.
To all Linux users. Help out the new ones, explain calmly and make them feel welcome so that they can contribute back later too.
To hell with Microslop.
People need to have some dignity. When an OS becomes an ant-privacy ad serving platform first and foremost, it’s time to ditch it!
My newest computer came with Windows 11. I ran it for a few weeks and wiped it and installed Bazzite Linux. I have had virtually no issues and honestly it’s been a fantastic experience.
I do have an older laptop running Win 10 for a handful of programs that I haven’t figured out how to get to work under Linux yet, but it’s just a matter of time.
What softwares? Sometimes there are good alternatives for them.
“official”
FUCK MICROSOFT
Microslop*
Dear Microsoft,
Could you please squeeze your users a little harder yet.
We’re eager for the year of the linux desktop.
Microslop*
I moved three Win 10 boxes to linux mint cinnamon this week. Twenty more and I’ll have made good progress on my little nonprofit. But I’m probably at least a decade from being able to go 100% away from windows and Mac’s. Fuck em both.
Good on ya.
Remember when you activated software with a key on the back of the CD case?
FCKGW?
How did you get MY key?!
Your key‽ That’s MY key!
Our key comrades.
I remember key generators… :)
those had the BEST music for some reason.
Never had any luck with those to say the least…
I think today, maybe they dont work. But I was using them in the 90s and 2000s, they were great and had music and graphics and everything, coded in pure assembly. :)
I remember awesome multi keygens for groups of titles by one publisher. Good times 😁.
I never used the one on the CD case, I just used all ones. Or 123451234512345, etc. for Windows 98.
microsoft kills official
was gettin excited there
Couldn’t you theoretically download an ISO for an older version of Win 11, install that offline without an account, then update it to the latest version?
Well…here’s the thing. Step 1 of your plan is to install windows 11.
In the words of Manny Calavera:
“I don’t really want to do that…”
I’ve installed a more recent version of Win11 without network and local account was still working. I also recently found that the IoT Enterprise version cuts out Copilot AND the Windows store in the base install. So IoT + Massgrave ftw.
Probably. I think the update will ask for your account at some point though (I don’t really use windows though, so you probably want a second opinion on that).
I believe they get weird about local accounts on recent versions of 11, even ones that already existed. I’m not going to verify, but yeah I think the point is they’re moving towards them basically not existing.
If something is beneficial to the side with more negotiating power and is practical to do, it happens.
It wasn’t plausible when Internet connectivity for accounts on local machines wasn’t a given always everywhere.
And it wasn’t that important for them.
Now both have changed enough.
Also I think all stable continuous changes of mass where single person doesn’t change much are predictable, similarly to Asimov’s Foundation (except there it was presented as something a virtuous genius does to help humanity, not quite how life works).
So expecting Microsoft and others to break their dicks is infantile. I think they’ll succeed fully inside their strategic definition, their model, one can say.
Where anything divergent and interesting can happen is the fringes. Like Reticulum, Briar, hobbyist weak hardware, technologies that will emerge occasionally without mass economic pressure. Toys and jokes.
It’s the Reddit and Twitter strategy, and sadly, it works.
Oh absolutely, the strategy has always been to secure the market, make it difficult to leave the service, and jack up the profit. The only thing we can do is recognise it happening and work to make alternatives available, work on our own skillsets instead of relying on their tools.
Which is a shame, but the mask is off as of late, and we can’t do much about that.
Yeah, I bet you could. Good thinking.
When I recently set up my laptop there was an rays command I was able to do to add the option back to use a local account
This is the dumbest decision for one reason alone: some laptops and desktops that lack updated drivers cannot connect to the internet.
It literally happened to me with a lenovo laptop, where I had to find a way to bypass the internet requirement or else I’d have a $800 paperweight.
If I didn’t need Windows for a specific reason I’d be on Linux, believe me. But this decision is ridiculous.
I don’t see how this particular thing is an issue. You don’t need to activate Windows during the setup. You can skip activation, update the driver, and then activate windows afterwards
I think the real problem is setting up Windows without a Microsoft account?
that wouldn’t work without tinkering anyways with the latest windows 11 versions
or use your phone or any other device to get the activation key.
Activation scripts can be put onto a USB drive, so if nothing else, there’s always a way to keep using the hardware you paid for (assuming you want to stay hostage to these fucks)
This garbage makes me so glad I switched to Linux Mint. Gaming has been just fine. Sure there have been a few hurdles, but they were well-worth spending time on as Microsoft continues this foolishness.
I’ve been perfectly happy on Mint since switching over a year ago. The few games I play run just fine (FO4, FOLON, Portal, and such), and the other apps work too, GIMP, Inkscape, LibreOffice, Blender, etc.
In spite of the recent post about which Linux distro to recommend, and seeing many no longer recommend Mint, I’ll stick with Mint. It just works.
+1 for running Mint.
Tried Pop_OS and the audio drivers were hot garbage. Went to Mint and it worked fine.
