Microsoft is finally doing it: Even Windows 11 Pro will soon require a MS Acc.

[Ranayna]

I'm surprised at how quick they actually did introduce that requirement now:

Similar to Windows 11 Home edition, Windows 11 Pro edition now requires internet connectivity during the initial device setup (OOBE) only. If you choose to setup device for personal use, MSA will be required for setup as well. You can expect Microsoft Account to be required in subsequent WIP flights.

Currently only in the insider versions, but may go into the main release at the end of this year.

Well, it has been a long time now Windows. It's finally time for something different. This is my red line that i will not cross.

[coromonadalix]

I had win 10 Entreprise before  banging my head on the win 11 variant,  stayed on the entreprise version

Not receving any Ms account creation  advertising / nagging ....

[Ranayna]

The problem is, that as an indiviual, you cannot get a legitimate copy of Windows Enterprise.
I would be willing to pay for Enterprise, with all the cloud and account crap totally optional, but MS is not letting me.

So i am willing to look for alternatives.

[SiliconWizard]

They can just go f* themselves.
 

[MrMobodies]

I have found a few sellers but they are volume license. If any hardware change cause it to activate and your volume licensor disappears then you'd have to find another one willing to sell you a key for the same version/build so better have a disc image backup just incase that happens and undo whatever change.


If they require me to:
Create an account
Sign in
and "install app on your pc"... and the above comment is very fitting.

They can just go f* themselves.

If someone gave me a free copy of Windows 10 I wouldn't even give it away I'd bin it, like the Window 10 Pro on a computer I got down the skip and ended stripping a lot of components out of it to stop it turning on the Windows updater and insulting me with "frightening" scare mongering messages.

Another thing I don't want to require GPT partitions instead of MBR where deleting the crap like above may become next to impossible where I'd have convert it like last time.

[Karel]

The noose slowly tightens...

Step by step, they become like Google & Android and Apple & MacOS. Walled garden and no sideloading.

Personally, I don't care (I use windows rarely and only in Virtualbox).

[nightfire]

Volume licenses work a bit different than the normal variants sold solo as a single box.
With Volume licensing, you whether get a MAK key, which can activate multiple instances of the installation, or you can opt to have an activation server inhouse, which is intended for large companies or installations like server farms.

At work, we are Volume licensing customers, so I have MAK keys that can activate up to 50 times a Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise installation within a certain timeframe- if i need more, I would have to go to M$ and let them reset the counter with some reason why (like mass redeployment etc.)

Therefore the MAK keys are guarded closely as they can deal real damage if they are compomised and gone...

[Marco]

Step by step, they become like Google & Android and Apple & MacOS. Walled garden and no sideloading.

It might turn out that way, but for the moment what's actually happened is that they made sideloading for apps enabled by default (ie. MSIX and UWP) and they have opened up the Microsoft store to classically packaged win32 applications. Also of course Android by default allows sideloading.

Which is to me a mixed blessing, I like the sideloading part but I think Microsoft desperately needs a new security and use model for a core set of applications. UWP was a mess, but they really need something like UWP. Not everything needs the freedom of massively invasive GUI modifying win32 utilities, that freedom is too easily abused.

Windows 11 SE (the education edition) is what the core windows experience should really be for most people. Sandboxed apps with a capability based security model and transparent cloud backup, just log in to your account on any PC and wait for cloud sync to finish and have your desktop. That's what modern computing should be like for most people. Then have a win32 desktop with win32 applications running in VM(s) for the people who want it.

[rdl]

I saw this coming years ago. Fortunately I mostly use Windows only for games. The game development companies have barely begun to migrate toward Windows 10. The vast majority of new games will still run on Windows 7 - which is what I use. I doubt I will live long enough to have to deal with Windows 11.

[Monkeh]

Another thing I don't want to require GPT partitions instead of MBR where deleting the crap like above may become next to impossible where I'd have convert it like last time.

What. Just, what.

[Bud]

just log in to your account on any PC and wait for cloud sync to finish and have your desktop.

This "wait" alone makes me sick.

[SiliconWizard]

I saw this coming years ago. Fortunately I mostly use Windows only for games. The game development companies have barely begun to migrate toward Windows 10. The vast majority of new games will still run on Windows 7 - which is what I use. I doubt I will live long enough to have to deal with Windows 11.

Except MS stuff of course. In particular, MS Flight sim 2020. Which is a shame, because this is the only decent piece of software MS has released in a long time.

[rdl]

Yeah, seems like Microsoft is trying to buy up the games industry. Their recent purchase of ZeniMax Media is a bad omen.

[MrMobodies]

What. Just, what.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/windows-10-update-aggro/

Couldn't delete files where I found had to convert it first but found another MBR copy but that was long ago.

Now I just use a Windows 10 enterprise LTSC 2019 that I have been customizing and working one for two years. Click to download, click to update but can't start automatically until shutting it down where it is offered in the shutdown menu. I removed the UpdateOrchestrator enteries from the task scheduler, register prevented it from using the system accounts to recreate them which also denies the user account access to alter them, set it's startup id from 32 to 16 (10) so the start type can be set and removed Rempl and waasmedic service that turns the updater back on. Also removed telemetry components that were making lots of connections to Microsoft and Azure observing it through the firewall. Not after the changes it is very loyal to me and I confidence in it as it does what I want it to.

When I find an improvement or strip something out that I don't like, I do it one on a template copy and do a disk image and when I want another copy or for my customers, I extract that image to another hard disk, put it in, install the drivers and when it all works I buy a key from a seller.

That way I don't get upset and angry trying to set it up all over again to make it work in the way I want.

I tell my customers and they know there is no app store and it is just to get something working quick without all the aggravation, feature updates and unwanted promotional stuff.

[Monkeh]

What. Just, what.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/windows-10-update-aggro/

Couldn't delete files where I found had to convert it first but found another MBR copy but that was long ago.

That has absolutely nothing to do with GPT.

[Karel]

What. Just, what.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/windows-10-update-aggro/

Couldn't delete files where I found had to convert it first but found another MBR copy but that was long ago.

Now I just use a Windows 10 enterprise LTSC 2019 that I have been customizing and working one for two years. Click to download, click to update but can't start automatically until shutting it down where it is offered in the shutdown menu. I removed the UpdateOrchestrator enteries from the task scheduler, register prevented it from using the system accounts to recreate them which also denies the user account access to alter them, set it's startup id from 32 to 16 (10) so the start type can be set and removed Rempl and waasmedic service that turns the updater back on. Also removed telemetry components that were making lots of connections to Microsoft and Azure observing it through the firewall. Not after the changes it is very loyal to me and I confidence in it as it does what I want it to.

When I find an improvement or strip something out that I don't like, I do it one on a template copy and do a disk image and when I want another copy or for my customers, I extract that image to another hard disk, put it in, install the drivers and when it all works I buy a key from a seller.

That way I don't get upset and angry trying to set it up all over again to make it work in the way I want.

I tell my customers and they know there is no app store and it is just to get something working quick without all the aggravation, feature updates and unwanted promotional stuff.

Much easier to install Linux than this... 

[mansaxel]

If you are so concerned, and still need Windows (which most people don't) just set up a Samba4 AD and join the client. No MSFT account questions, configurable leakage. Control.

[HighVoltage]

There are always ways around such requirements, just install a "lean" version.

[Marco]

This "wait" alone makes me sick.

Compared to a traditional "sync" of your stuff with a new PC, a Chromebook sync is usually a lot faster. It still works fine offline and if you used the account on the same Chromebook last time the sync is instant. Chromebook has other problems, but cloud syncing isn't one.

However you do it, syncing takes time, manual or automatic. Automatic through cloud storage is the future.

[MrMobodies]

That has absolutely nothing to do with GPT.

Please can you explain?

I found I could at the time when I converted it but maybe what I did was coincidental.
I think it might have been EFI.

I am not sure if I have it still but I'll see if I can find the original disk or disk image and have a play around with it.

[Bud]

This "wait" alone makes me sick.

Compared to a traditional "sync" of your stuff with a new PC, a Chromebook sync is usually a lot faster. It still works fine offline and if you used the account on the same Chromebook last time the sync is instant. Chromebook has other problems, but cloud syncing isn't one.

Sorry I do not know why I need a Chromebook 
I use my PC for engineering work. Not sure what that 'sync' stuff is either , I have no use for it.

[Monkeh]

That has absolutely nothing to do with GPT.

Please can you explain?

All GPT does is chop a disk up into partitions. It has absolutely nothing to do with filesystems or permissions.

Just look it up and examine the header and partition table formats - it's self-explanatory.

[SiliconWizard]

GPT is just a partitioning scheme indeed, just a bit more advanced than with MBR.
Not sure how it would cause a problem here.

[MrMobodies]

All GPT does is chop a disk up into partitions. It has absolutely nothing to do with filesystems or permissions.

Just look it up and examine the header and partition table formats - it's self-explanatory.

I thought it had something to do with it but silly me. I found the original disc image copy of it in 2019 before I copied it to a SDD stripped stuff out of it.
I did convert it just now and got the same error message with trying to delete the system files.
I can make folder and copy stuff but not delete certain things.

Obviously it is something else 80070780.
Taking ownership does nothing.

Actually on further looking it is permission protected despite taking ownership, it is has been set for every account except trustedinstaller so basically locked out.
I can't remember what I did to solve that.

I believe I found the issue just now but not what I remember.

I noticed "read only" attribute in c:\windows\ folder
Trying to removing this attribute leads to "THE TARGET OF THE SYMBOLIC LINK DOES NOT EXIST"

https://level400.org/2019/06/18/how-to-deal-with-the-target-of-the-symbolic-link-doesnt-exist/

Luke Edson Posted on June 18, 2019
How to deal with The target of the symbolic link doesn’t exist
The other day I came across a Hyper-V host server where an OS crash had occurred. A new OS install was made on the C: drive. After the rebuild, the D: drive’s VMs (VHDX’s etc.) were visible and appeared to be fully available, but when an attempt was made to import the existing VMs or even access the files, the following error message was displayed:

"The target of the symbolic link doesn't exist"
Trying to access the with Windows Explorer gave an Error 0x80070780: The File cannot be accessed by the system.

Attributes APLI

To disable DeDuplication:
If DeDuplication is disabled, it doesn’t actually undo the work that was done, and if it is disabled, garbage cleanup commands can’t be run.

It’s VERY Important that Deduplication is left enabled, but leave the entire drive Excluded.

Once that’s done, run the following two commands (which will take quite a bit of time depending on how much data there is).

I'll have a go at that later.

Once again sorry about that.

[Marco]

I use my PC for engineering work. Not sure what that 'sync' stuff is either , I have no use for it.

If you've changed PCs you have manually synced your data, you have use for your old data on a new PC. The future for modern software will be to make all that transparent and automated ... not really relevant for engineering software rigged together from codebases 3 decades old, but for a lot more normie software it will be. Having your desktop, application configuration and data tied to an online account which can be trivially synced to a different computer is a convenience which people appreciate. It's a big reason why Chromebooks work so well for education.

Though unlike Microsoft when Apple gets around to implementing cloud syncing properly for MacOS they will drag all the developers who want to use their appstore along kicking and screaming, as they are want to do, engineering software or not. They have less patience with legacy.