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This "make Windows better" push is far more political than technological. It's a fight with other divisions about using Windows as a marketing and sales channel for other products and services.

It has to be a decision from the very top. I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. It's not just 10% of revenue, it's a foundation for how enterprises ended up on Azure and are bringing big money.

I'm still a Windows power user, MacBook is a wonderful piece of hardware and I'm typing this on one, but I'm not nearly as productive as on multimonitor PC with TotalCommander and Visual Studio where I use all the shortcuts subconsciously.

That would improve things.

Over the weekend, a family member could not log into their laptop any longer. Turned out to be “a problem with Teams” that required an unscheduled update which was marked as optional. Needless to say that they never used Teams on that machine.

When the login worked partially, their files weren’t accessible because they accidentally saved it on OneDrive which now defaults to storing online only. And OneDrive was also affected by the Teams bug.

Spent a good part of the day cursing in the direction of Redmond.

I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in).

Guess what? With Apple's new Neo laptop the price is also way way wayyy out to lunch.

If MSFT gives a business a huge bulk discount to buy their laptops + Office360 + Teams... OK? But as a "consumer" it really sucks.

Want PC gaming? Steamdeck or Steambox.

I think the decreasing fondness of Windows can mostly be blamed on Microsoft forcing their internet services on users; with the need for Microsoft accounts being the most recent & damning of the bunch.

You had gadgets in Vista & 7, but they could easily be disabled. 8 had live tiles for things like the news (effortlessly removable) and introduced the Microsoft Store (which increasingly needs an account). 8.1 added Bing Search to the start menu (requires Regedit to remove nowadays), 10 added news & current events to the start menu, and in 11 they want us to register Microsoft accounts to use the OS.

It's ridiculous how much control we've lost over Windows so that Microsoft can tell shareholders more people are doing Bing searches and signing up for Microsoft accounts than ever before.

Apple makes a nice distinction between their "app layer" (iCloud drive and Messages, etc.) and the OS login. This would work fine for Windows power users, and for the most part Windows has already had this (your "store" login). But to require the cloud to replace your login, the cloud has to be essential to the functioning of Windows and you have to explain the security implications clearly, and it's not clear that any of these things happened.

For instance, almost none of the useful settings from win32 apps sync - migrating to a new PC is painful, your apps don't move, your settings are all missing. It takes weeks, you don't just login to it. So this idea that it makes all your settings sync is maybe 10% true.

The argument for this online account (vs just a container for apps) is that you think a few Windows appearance settings must be synced always, or that you want to save things like your BitLocker keys in the cloud (which probably makes them visible to FBI or whoever else). And the security implications need to be spelled out in plain language. And in the end, it's a pretty bad argument - Grandma doesn't need BitLocker, but the people who do want a clear explanation. A lot of the rest could live in a "Microsoft apps" credential layer: Edge, OneDrive, Office, etc.

I want to feel like I can login to a recovery console and fix a bad partition. I want to keep using the same username across Linux and Windows. I want to recover a router with the old laptop that has actual ethernet, and who knows if it has cached credentials? My Microsoft account is my least used one, and who knows if it is secure?

One last thing: logging in with biometrics is amazing, but why must I use a low-security PIN in place of your pre-existing password?

Please fix it all.

Too little, too late. I switched to Linux and I'm never looking back. Good riddance, Microsoft.

I dropped Windows when Microsoft first added ads. My last Windows 7 machine was turned off last year.

It's just better without Microsoft.

They might drop it for end consumers but I doubt it.

It's such a small niche right now they do not even care if they're in their cloud. Enterprise users are the absolute majority of their user base revenue-wise.

However dropping the requirement might force them to change some things. Like in Azure-related stuff such as OneDrive where you have to design/build/test it behave differently if the user is not constantly logged into the Azure account. This means that they might decide to continue to force the Azure account and if they lose more of the end consumers so be it.

Unless they decide to separate Home and higher versions of Windows even more and drop the requirement for the home version users. But it might be more trouble than it's worth.

Enterprise is where the money is.

feels like microsoft keeps optimizing for ecosystem lock-in while users just want less friction

requiring an account for basic stuff might make sense internally but from user side it just adds unnecessary steps

My company is still on windows, but it's only because most of our users are over 60 and would stroke out if they had to learn something new. I predict within the next 10 years we will move to something else. The hoops I have to jump through to setup new devices without a Microsoft account are ridiculous. Every time we have a workaround they disable it and we have to do a deeper dive on it. The process right now requires using the command line to create an account with administrator permissions and no password and then create a password after logging in. Then we can create a non-admin local account.

Ironic that the website that has this article also features similar bloat and ads that the article complains about.

I have used Microsoft operating systens for 30 years. I started moving servers onto Linux 5 years ago. The desktops on laptops stayed on Windows (10). I have started converting those ss well.

Windows had a good thing going (if you ignored some bad releases), but them pushing it too far with 11 and the Linux desktop making great strides, sort of put the nail in that coffin for me.

Not sure what they can do to make me reconsider. It's a trust issue now.

Totally random observation, but this site, Windows Central (I think it belongs to a company named Future PLC), is bloated as hell. So it was somewhat ironic seeing them publishing about how Microsoft should make Windows less shitty for its users

I've always understood why they do this. Its data collection, its a really weak lock-in to their ecosystem, it gets users embedded into Windows more. Its just not very compelling, just another hoop to jump through. Also I don't really see Microsoft accounts as a major SSO offering on many sites, its usually Google/Apple/Facebook and maybe some other related sites. Seems logical to call this one done and just focus on making a more enjoyable experience in Windows.

Are people inside apple fighting to drop the mandatory apple account for iOS and various core apple features?

I can buy a thinkpad and install linux on it without once creating a microsoft account. I can buy an android phone supported by GrapheneOS, and use it as a perfectly fine phone without ever creating a google account.

I cannot buy an iPhone without creating an apple account, without getting ads shoved in my face by apple, without them deciding what I can and can't install on it, and them charging me for the privilege of writing my own software.

Microsoft doesn't deserve as much shame here as Apple does since MS isn't requiring their hardware vendors to lock down the hardware to only be able to run Windows (even though they very well could). Apple, with iOS, is.

No, they should leave it. Make it as onerous and tedious and annoying as possible to set up a new computer.

2026 is the year of the Linux desktop. It's time - Linux has never been better or easier to use than it is right now.

For what it’s worth, `start ms-cxh: localonly` after Shift+F10 during installation still works. Another way is to prepare a custom installation image. Of course, such workarounds shouldn’t be needed, so this is nevertheless a good fight.

Serious question: why is this not a problem with apple products?

I only deal with Windows during a little IT volunteering. The org's PC has an MS account, which is ok per se, but the nagging doesn't stop there. Like it randomly started asking for SMS verification at login, which looks like a real auth challenge, but you can actually skip it. So that's in their handbook now.

I hope they succeed, and this is from someone who loves Linux and hate Windows. I want as many positive general purpose computing platforms as possible. No, this won't make Windows perfect, but every step in the right direction is crucial.

Much like politics, you want sane, healthy competitors. Microsoft enshittifying as much as possible might bump up the Linux numbers in the short term, but I think it would be unhealthy for Linux in the long term. You want a major power like Microsoft pushing back on some of these trends, which completely opens the door for small players to benefit from that pushback.

I hope the folks at Microsoft can roll back as much of the slop as possible.

I posted something similar the other day, but at this point it is too little too late. Using windows feels like actively submitting to a hostile user experience.

I look back fondly to the time I had using my Dell XPS when WSL first came out, they had me hooked. I've been using MacBook Pro for about a decade now and I can't even fathom going back to windows. Every time I open the start menu I feel personally attacked.

I used to obsess over reading xda developer forums and playing around with my android phone. I would laugh at the "sheeple" using apple products for not being customizable and giving away their freedom.

At this point in my life "it just works" is good enough and no longer a point of ironic derision.

This entire article is based on a one sentence tweet with zero details provided.

"Ya I hate that. Working on it." - Could mean anything, which I would argue in this case, is equivalent to being meaningless. Does this mean Hanselman has a team with tickets lined up for the next sprint to allow offline accounts as a first-class workflow? Or does it mean he sent an email to the relevant stakeholders asking, "Hey guys, what can we do about this"?

I am not encouraged that we will see a change in momentum from Microsoft on this issue.

But remote account is just one of the many evils they cane up in the last decade or so. Honestly, not sure if the net benefit for humanity is negative if Windows gradually disappears.

> People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

This is the minimum peace offering acceptable to your long suffering users.

The lack of local account makes it so difficult to setup a PC for someone else, I wish they just used the same strategy as macOS.

I have Windows and Mac PCs/laptops. I've used Windows since Windows 3.0, for 30+ years now. In the early 90s I invested in Windows NT 3.5 as a college student and learned how to use that over Windows 3.1 or OS/2. I attended the Windows 95 celebration in person. I almost went into becoming a Microsoft MCSE because it would have doubled my pay but went the programming route instead because I loved it more.

I'm still on Windows 10. Fuck you Microsoft for making Windows 11 worse than Windows 10. The simple fact I can't stop them from updating my Windows 10 machine and it reboots my machine makes me so angry that's one of the main reasons why I will never upgrade. Microsoft Recall is a non-starter for me, even though they made it "better".

If they force me to upgrade, I'll move entirely to Mac and install Linux on my current Windows desktop.

A lot of people are finding the Mac Neo very interesting given how unfriendly the whole Win11 experience has become. Either MS learns or the market teaches them the same lessons IBM learnt.

I'm reminded of people inside Google arguing with Vic Gundotra to drop the Real ID requirement for Plus :(

I wonder how much pressure is coming from OEMs given the MacBook Neo is coming straight for them in the budget laptop range.

Microsoft has, by far, the absolute worst sign-on experience of any enterprise vendor I've ever used in any industry for any reason. Try to log in to AWS and you'll either get authed or a clear denial reason. Google Workspace? You're in or you're out. Enterprisey MS service like Outlook or Azure? Well, if you've logged in from that computer before, you might get to log in, but you may also have to hunt around for your organization login. I recently tried to log in to an org but it ended up creating a personal account with an email address at the org's domain, and then I couldn't sign in to the org because that account was already taken, and it took something like a week for the anti-fraud cooldown to let me delete the account and eventually re-register it inside the org.

For giggles, I just logged into my charity's Outlook account. I tried to log out, but it's showing me a "Your privacy matters" popup explaining why my privacy doesn't matter, and the "sign out" menu item stopped working, presumably until I agree to let them hoover my data. (Aside: the "To adjust your optional connected experience, go to Privacy settings." link doesn't take me to my privacy settings. It takes me to a page telling me how to get to my privacy settings.)

You cannot convince me that anyone at MS actually uses their public-facing auth system for anything ever. MS gets love for backward compatibility, but I see it as laziness. Instead of making one system that "just works", like Google and Apple and AWS and every other large vendor on the planet has managed, they half-ass support all 537 different auth systems they've ever deployed, driven by what I imagine must look like a giant nested switch/case behind the scenes. "OK, the user didn't have an "@" in their username, so call `legacy_pw_auth_23(form.password)`. It did have an "@", and also a "@minecraft." in it, so call `minecraft_v1_real_pw_authorizerer(form.password)`, unless it also contains `foo@minecraft.`, in which case call `minecraft_migration_2014_null(form.password)`, except in February, which has 28 days most of the time, where we call..." Heaven help you if it guesses wrong and sends you down the wrong twisty passage.

I'm far from a Google fanboy. I use their stuff for work, and it's alright, but it does not spark joy in my day. Still, I bet if the Microsoft Account login worked anywhere near as clearly, reliably, and rationally as Google sign-on, then Windows wouldn't get 1/10th the pushback we're seeing. If I couldn't authenticate to my own desktop any more reliably than I could auth to Outlook, I'd want nothing to do with it, either.

The only benefit I've seen to having a Microsoft account is that I don't have to remember a cd key anymore if I have to reinstall... other than that, what was it actually used for?

The enshittifiers don't seem to understand inertia. By the time the enshittification becomes bad enough to do something about it, it's too late.

For that to happen, people have to be pissed off enough that it starts affecting metrics. Then, that needs to be detected, a decision to do something about it has to be made (we are probably somewhere around here), then that decision needs to be implemented step by step by removing all the enshittification... and in the meantime, the reputation as a terminally enshittified product keeps growing.

Even if most of the enshittification is removed, the reputation will stick for a while, just like the product was able to initially keep being successful despite the enshittification.

Windows LTSC gang.

You’ve always been able to install and use without an account (oobe\bypassnro). As long as power users and businesses can avoid it, they have no real incentive to change.

Maybe Apple will follow suit and won't require an Apple account anymore to be able to use a MacBook.

>Windows 11 will still force you to setup an internet connection and sign-in with a Microsoft account during the out of box experience

One has to wonder if this change will occur, that is due to these state laws requiring various levels of age verification. I can see MS stating you need to have this account because of the Age Verification Law in your State.

In a way, California's law is a huge gift to big tech, and now it is being replicated to other US states with additional requirements.

And they have not yelled when they were implementing it years ago?

That sounds more like they were ok with it at the time and now they are seeing how much it actually backfired.

hmm MS killing off MS Windows by employing the Google AI and surveillance in everything push....who would have guessed that MS ran out of product ideas!

microslop

Great - so even Microsoft is not convinced to force everyone into having a Microslop Account. We need to change Microsoft - its current culture is too evil.

microslop can do anything, but I am not going to use their stupid OS anymore. Even enterprise window is full of bloatware.

I’m a Windows fan, and I could see this being a pain for OEMs and installers / IT guys – but I don’t see why people are making a huge deal . Windows quality is a much bigger issue: latency, reliability issues, inconsistencies in the UI, etc.

Windows account login provides decent value: Bitlocker recovery, device management, Onedrive sync (even the free version), simpler RDP & remote RPC authentication.

You won’t even defeat telemetry with a local account. Windows TOS grants telemetry consent.

Why do you guys care so much about this? It feels like a bikeshed – something easy to complain about with little nuance. What will be won if MS concedes?