MS making harder to install W11 with a local account.

[adrian_k]

They really, really, really want you to have an internet connection and be logged into Microsoft.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03 ... mandatory/

[ef37a]

They really, really, really want you to have an internet connection and be logged into Microsoft.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03 ... mandatory/

Oh dear! This is a worry, as some here will know, I am looking to get a W11 laptop for my son later in the year and he is even less computer smart than his dad!
His usage will be virtually 100% music work so *&*^%g Microsoft crashing in would be a royal PITA.

I would also like to setup the machine so that we can both access it as administrator.

Dave.

[resistorman]

You can turn it into a local account after install? I really would like to get off Windows, still on 10 because they don't monkey with it much, but I use Samplitude and Vegas. I may turn into that guy who freezes his main production machine in time and leaves it off the net permanently

[adrian_k]

Ah Ok thanks.

[OneWorld]

You can turn it into a local account after install? I really would like to get off Windows, still on 10 because they don't monkey with it much, but I use Samplitude and Vegas. I may turn into that guy who freezes his main production machine in time and leaves it off the net permanently

I'm getting to that point too., My PC is working fine, and no internet, no virus, scams and all the other nasties. But more and more companies selling software enforce a 'call home' feature as part of the install. I was going through the install of something the other and I was shunted into the sidings to an installer which went on to interrogate me for more info than I consider it needed just to install some software, I pulled out, I lost the money I'd paid but it was only a minor purchase so was prepared to take the hit.

I have almost every bit of software I need and speculative purchases/downloads are just a spontaneous whim of a purchase and not really conducive to productivity. To be isolated from the internet wouldn't be such a great impediment to productive work.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I am hoping the by then £169.00 Windows Pro option will allow you to operate with a local account only. A great business model would be to build in annoyance and then charge more for removing said annoyance.

Is starts to feel somewhere between digital freedom and a digital prison.

It has always been somewhat this way but seems to become more and more invasive.

Typically some clever people work out a way to turn this kind of thing off using an app. Let's hope they do. For the best part of a decade my main work machine is offline other than for something I have deemed high importance to update.

To feel forced to have a machine on the internet every time it boots feels prohibitively annoying. For every individual there will come a straw that breaks the camels back.

[James Perrett]

I have Windows 10 and 11 pro machines which have been used offline with no apparent problems - although they've only been offline for a day or two at a time.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

The way I read this was MS may be testing account only Windows 11 as a "feature" through their "experimental Dev Channel" and it is not applicable to existing W11 machines, unless you are installing bleedin' edge updates which is very much not recommended.

My current W11 DAW has not been online for 3-4 weeks and it is also very happy.

It may never go online ever again which I see as possibly a good thing. (I have a seperate office/delivery machine.) I want for nothing toolwise. I have every tool imaginable so it does not need to be online unless something becomes incompatible with something else.

One has to really be on top of this PC business these days.

I am starting to carefully think through various future options, it can be flexible as the whims of OS and software companies change. Tiring but necessary.

[OneWorld]

In common with many I have a music computer and a general factotum of a PC which I use for anything and everything that isn't utilized for music making.

Both machines were Win10 and I was happy with that because of the stability, especially the music machine which using using various utilities, I had scavenged it of all but necessary services. But I got a new music machine and it came with WIn11 installed and to my surprise that too could be wiped of the digital bric-a-brac MS wants to foist upon us. Following that I bought a new dogsbody computer and that came with Win10 installed but I was pestered to upgrade to Win11.

And that was when I noticed this increasing cajoling to change my local account to an online one. which I neither need nor want I feel like a Greenlander where Trump says we're having you whether you want it or not.

The moment Steinberg appears on LINUX, I'm switching, because I get this feeling in my waters that MS, and others are going to bully us into submission.

I can't remember the name of the app that purges Win11 of all the trish trash go online etc stuff, I only ever needed it once but I am sure a quick search on DuckDuckGo will reveal it, BTW I don't Oogle anything or anyone, it has consequences

[adrian_k]

Slowly but surely I am inching towards MacOS. I think you need an Apple account for that so it’s not much different to MS in that respect, but I feel that MS’s intentions are data scraping and filling my screen with upsell popups. Apple may be the same, but judging by my wife’s experience it doesn’t seem so.

I just need to sell one of the grandkids to pay for it.

[OneWorld]

Slowly but surely I am inching towards MacOS. I think you need an Apple account for that so it’s not much different to MS in that respect, but I feel that MS’s intentions are data scraping and filling my screen with upsell popups. Apple may be the same, but judging by my wife’s experience it doesn’t seem so.

I just need to sell one of the grandkids to pay for it.

I have an Apple iPad as a carryabout and yes it is far less intrusive, but I just use it to read/watch the news and YouTubing

But my Win11, since I exorcised it, has hardly any, if any at all, intrusions, except the odd poke in the ribs telling me life will be a bed of roses if only I got sucked into casting aside my local account and hitching my wagon to an MS Account, which I already have as it happens but don't feel inclined to use it, I am happy as I am

[Eddy Deegan]

Slowly but surely I am inching towards MacOS.

Microsoft have been relentlessly irritating me for a while now. The increasing requirement for an online Microsoft account is a bit aggravating but bothers me less than the aggressive manner in which they force other things on you that you don't want. Stupid 'content from the Internet' additions to the Start Menu, privacy erosion, pressuring/tricking you into using Edge and Bing etc.

I also find it annoying that the Start Menu has devolved into an abomination and no longer presents a proper view of your installed software.

Having used Windows 10/11 for the last few years in my studio, after mulling it over and realising it's only going to get worse I ordered a Mac Studio (16-core M4 Max, 64Gb, 2Tb) last week for DAW purposes going forward. It's arriving on the 8th

[N i g e l]

I want for nothing toolwise. I have every tool imaginable so it does not need to be online unless something becomes incompatible with something else.

"and therein lies the rub" . These music technologists are always finding new inticements to make you want the latest gear.

[adrian_k]

Slowly but surely I am inching towards MacOS.

Microsoft have been relentlessly irritating me for a while now. The increasing requirement for an online Microsoft account is a bit aggravating but bothers me less than the aggressive manner in which they force other things on you that you don't want. Stupid 'content from the Internet' additions to the Start Menu, privacy erosion, pressuring/tricking you into using Edge and Bing etc.

I also find it annoying that the Start Menu has devolved into an abomination and no longer presents a proper view of your installed software.

Having used Windows 10/11 for the last few years in my studio, after mulling it over and realising it's only going to get worse I ordered a Mac Studio (16-core M4 Max, 64Gb, 2Tb) last week for DAW purposes going forward. It's arriving on the 8th

Yes the whole Start menu fiasco is another bit of grit in the Vaseline. Nice one on ordering the Mac Studio!

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I want for nothing toolwise. I have every tool imaginable so it does not need to be online unless something becomes incompatible with something else.

"and therein lies the rub" . These music technologists are always finding new inticements to make you want the latest gear.

I think things are a little different in that when I work or enjoy making music which is work for some there is a very clear involvement where I feel the need to have expressed something myself. Any tool that dilutes that such as "ay aye" has a grand total of zero interest. For others it may be the holy grail, that's fine as well.

It is not a super strong "it must me and only me" as ideas often come in various ways and not just born of egotistical force. They can appear from a flow of passive involvement, mistakes, tests that make you go "Oh that sounds great and I was not expecting it" but it is still this enigmatic creative process that makes the wonder of music making. Losing that would be losing too much of it for me personally.

Treble that I am sure if you play an instrument well !

I don't need ay aye, that's a clear decision that is made.

Process, action involvement and result are intertwined here. I like a modern tool as much as anyone but most are variations or tweaks on existing tool, dynamic EQ etc. Multiband defibulators et al.

When making music I use a little sidchaining here and there, very slight amounts usually, maybe dynamic EQ and a compresssor here and there.

Once you can reliably mix with your ears alone you don't need to throw the kitchen sink at it unless you are going for an intentionally hyper processed "techy" or heavy electronic sound. Which is just one sound of course no better or worse than any other sound.

Maybe once in a while an new tool appears but right now I can flow through my toolset choices through knowing them so well and that has a high value.

You can generally only listen for one aspect at a time, maybe 2. lows,mids high transients, stereo image, harmonic addition, specific parameter effects and so on. You dont want or need unexpected side effects with tools in mastering. You want to know what you are getting when any given tool appears on a piece of music as far as is possible before you touch a parameter. And some more technical/visual diligence checks in plug in doctor make sense.

120 plug in is only great if you know what 120 plug ins are really doing.

Changing things disrupts consistency. In mastering that is especially dramatic and in my opinion often jumped on far to quickly by many.

To just change one item such as a DAC as an example. That alone had me scratching my head for 3 months as the information coming to my ears had seemingly tripled. It took a while to for the ears and brain to settle down.

A new plug in is treated with caution in mastering as you really don't know what it can be doing for quite a while of use. I often test new plug ins on my own music before putting them to use on other peoples music.

[The Elf]

I'm informed that Shift-F10 and the typing of 'start ms-cxh:localonly' is the answer to this MS account nonsense...

[awjoe]

Confirmed?

[BWC]

"which BleepingComputer has confirmed to work"

...for now.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/m ... quirement/

[adrian_k]

Thanks

[ef37a]

So far so sort of good then...
Can I ask, when I get a W11 laptop it will obviously have the OS installed, can I then still set it up for a local account and will that matter when it goes to France?

Dave.

[BigRedX]

Slowly but surely I am inching towards MacOS. I think you need an Apple account for that so it’s not much different to MS in that respect, but I feel that MS’s intentions are data scraping and filling my screen with upsell popups. Apple may be the same, but judging by my wife’s experience it doesn’t seem so.

I just need to sell one of the grandkids to pay for it.

I have a MacBook Pro that is only used for live playback of our drums and second synth backing. Other than the initial set-up and download of a copy of Logic and a couple of other utilities it has not knowingly been connected to the internet. WiFi is turned off and the network socket is inaccessible when in the rack case. All update prompts have been turned off. Files are transferred from my desktop Mac using a USB stick.

[adrian_k]

MS still incrementally closing down the loopholes to setting up a PC with a local account with each new update. Apparently so they can ensure the user doesn’t miss any of the vital configuration options (which as far as I can see configure your machine for their use, not yours). I think once you are set up you are OK so existing installations shouldn't be affected.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10 ... -11-build/

[merlyn]

You might wonder how businesses put up with Microsoft's dubious practices. There exists professional software that is Windows only, like Solidworks CAD software.

The short answer is that businesses don't put up with it. They use Sensible Windows™ also known as Windows LTSC:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... c/overview

It shows the contempt Microsoft has for the average punter. Businesses get a reasonable product, and punters are farmed for their data like cattle.

[OneWorld]

It occurred to me ages ago - MS as good as gives away Win11 and its predecessors, to create a dependency, no chance of another OS usurping it, once that dependency is established, then they can run amock, and we'll have nowhere to run, cannot seek sanctuary in LINUX, it's too perplexing, then we'll end up paying for Wn11 and its successors, we'll be forced into a subscription model, along with Office et al Rump wants world domination and the big tech breaks bread with him, the rewards are beyond compare.

Amongst my reading.....

'Vassal State' Angus Hanton (which mentions MS, and other such companies)

'Democracy for Sale' Peter Geoghegan

There's a lot of food for thought and concerning issues. Does something being published in a book establish its veracity? no of course not, but when the accounts are backed up by names being named and details verified, and circumstances mentioned by several sources, a reality begins to take shape.

[garrettendi]

Stuff like this entire thread makes me so glad I switched to Linux. But despite my being a bit of a "Linux evangelist" I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who likes to just get on with things without fixing issues. Linux has come in leaps and bounds over the years, but with the additional freedom and security it provides, it comes at the cost of a more "involved" user experience.

If anyone wants a few pointers on migrating to Linux, pop me a PM.

(Sorry to hijack a Windows thread with Linux).