HN Reader

For those who care at the first setup screen instead of answering any of the questions press Shift + F10

CMD will open

Type (no quotes) “net user Prefferedusername /add” (replacing Prefferedusername with the user name you wish to use) and press enter.

Next type “net localgroup administrators Prefferedusername /add” and press enter.

Next type “net user Prefferedusername /active:yes” and press enter.

Next type “net user Prefferedusername /expires:never” and press enter.

Next type “net user administrator /active:no” and press enter.

Next type “net user defaultUser0 /delete” (this is case sensitive make sure the "U" is capitalized) and press enter.

Next type "regedit" and press enter.

This opens registry editor, navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE"

Delete "DefaultAccountAction", "DefaultAccountSAMName", and "DefaultAccountSID"

Right click on "LaunchUserOOBE" and rename it to "SkipMachineOOBE" and make sure the value is set to "1".

Close registry editor and type "shutdown /r /t 0"

The solution is to run Linux. KDE is a good desktop environment: https://kde.org/

90% of Windows games run on Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45736925

LibreOffice is an okay office suite (good enough for my purposes): https://www.libreoffice.org/

GIMP is a good image editor: https://www.gimp.org/

VLC is a good media player: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

It's funny to see how Windows and Linux completely switched sides. Linux once being the clumsy one, hard to install, even harder to configure, mediocre UX, running on poor device drivers and requiring hours spent on the internet to solve a problem. Today, replace the "Linux" word with "Windows" in the previous sentence.

Your computer is not yours citizen. Stop your disobedience.

Stallman was right.

To install Windows 11 with a local user and/or to install it without the TPM 2.0 requirement, what I found easiest was using Rufus to prepare a flash drive with the Windows 11 ISO. Rufus asks if you want to create a local user and what the user name is. It also asks if you want to skip some of the Windows 11 requirements. Then when you install Windows 11 using the flash drive it just works.

Step 1: https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ Set up an unattend script how you want it to install Windows 11 Education, the only sane build of W11 with most AI shit turned off.

Step 2: Install W11 with the autounattend.xml.

Step 3: Powershell as admin -> irm https://get.activated.win | iex

Oh no, all the 10 minute videos that should be 10 bullet points in plain text?

Thank you Microsoft for your efforts towards making year of the Linux desktop a thing

The writing has been on the wall for years. Die hard windows users have been telling me that the increasingly esoteric incantations needed to install Windows without submitting to giving Microsoft your identity are a deliberate and officially supported feature which they can rely on even as the common proles are herded onto Microsoft's plantation. I wonder if any still really believe it. The best time to jump ship is now.

When the $699 MacBook launches, oh boy it's going to sell well.

Oddly enough, I had the simplest experience of installing Windows 11 25H2 on a new ThinkPad just recently. Apparently the Windows ISO doesn't have the WiFi drivers for that specific machine out of the box, so during setup when it couldn't find an internet connection, it simply offered to create a local account.

So I would assume, if there is a way you can temporarily disable networking (e.g. in BIOS), then that would be the easiest way to avoid creating a Microsoft account.

The parody of Techno-feudalism

The main issue is how opaque the system is, though that may also be a feature to limit people’s abilities in figuring out how to bypass various restrictions. No one should have to risk the existence of their channel and livelihood to some unknown automated algorithm. Although the reddit post only cites videos from one person running into this issue, the first video link has comments referencing someone else so I found a video from that other person as an additional data point.

https://youtu.be/vQ-RXzzU9u0

YouTube and other large platforms should be regulated like public utilities. Otherwise the abuse will continue.

OK, I really hope they were downloaded and will spread on other platforms like vimeo, dailymotion and especially The Internet Archive?

Does anyone have links to "how-to's" for Linux in the enterprise? Password/MFA management, central app management, the equivalent of group policy, device management, etc.? IME, these are the areas in the enterprise where Windows "wins" with the IT teams, but it's been a long time since I've been close to the rollout side of the house. TIA

I made some videos of installing Windows 95, 98 and NT on DosBox-X on macOS ARM: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RBMSW1B6hKk

And a GitHub repo: https://github.com/BrowserBox/windows-dosbox-x

I tried different AIs to make the scripts to automate installs in DosBox-X as long as you have a product key and ISO or other media.

Most interesting to me was the different quirks between OSeS. NT was the most tricky in getting to work on DosBox-X and syncing up internet, IIRC. But overall a very fun project. Brings back nostalgia of 3.5" disks and seeing those install screen. Very cool times in the 90s ha! :)

How viable is it to stay in Win10?

This is probably youtuber drama about some random youtube algorithm led takedown and likely nothing to do with Microsoft or the actual content of the video that got taken down

My understanding was that you can install Windows 11 Pro, and tell it that you want to join a domain and in that case you're prompted to create a local account. That generally seems like the easiest option, even if the $45 price difference seems a little much.

They have been taking down a lot of YouTube videos with Bob Dylan botlegs in the recent days, so maybe the platform is becoming more restrictive with everything, not just Windows 11 installs

90% of software does run on Linux, but if the software you really care about/need for your job/need for your hobby doesn't, then it might as well be 0%. You are going to use Windows then.

A bit late eh? That genie left the bottle quite some time ago. And there are still other methods available.

The number of Linux fanboys coming out of the woodwork to complain about Windows (and to provide anecdotes about Windows which are clearly exaggerated) is very high.

Please read the Linux Advocacy HOW-TO.

Shitting on Windows and MacOS does not make you look authoritative, honest, or credible. It makes you look like you have a very strong opinion and shut off from anything that does not conform to your opinion.

Windows 11 is definitely not in my future so I do not care about this, but it's the same crap as when they removed downvotes due to Disney and Biden's Whitehouse getting ratioed to hell. YouTube/Google is not your friend and does not care about you. As long as you understand that, you should not be surprised as you always expect things like this.

A game is fun. Software that prevents you from doing what you want with it is neither of those things.

Considering I can find plenty of nonstandard Windows 11 install guides on youtube I don't think this guys video was taken down for that reason. Most likely hit with automated moderating and he probably said "kill" in the video while giving instructions. That could trigger the violence filter and now he gets tons of more views from idiots thinking Microsoft and Google are working together to protect Win11 from a supposed massive wave of people going around the sign in requirement. Or whatever other grievence they have with Windows.

I wiped Win11 from my Ideapad and installed Ubuntu. I love Gnome & it's the closest it'll get to MacOS (am a Mac user mainly). Win11 was absolutely wild though - around every corner was some ad for Office365 or Copilot or some other shit product. You don't own Windows (anymore) - you borrow it.

Youtube also took down videos for Adobe a few months ago and HN deleted posts/comments about it: https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/google-adobe-a...

Fwiw I had to report one of those "free win11 activated" videos as it was having users download and run a script from a suspicious source and handing full domain admin to a 3rd party.

In my domain (motorsports), almost all software is ancient 3rd party stuff only available as windows desktop apps.

I’ve tried emulators but performance is abysmal for these apps. There are also all sorts of weird networking things that don’t work.

And generally when you work with a new team which has a different tech stack, there just isn’t time within the context of a race weekend to faff.

I’m unfortunately locked in.

It's as if the web as we known it has outgrown it's usefulness to individual people beyond interacting with companies and government.

Time for something new. No idea what, but we need a way for people to share with people... That's what made usenet, then the web so awesome. Both were mostly wrecked by the same commercialization.

I wonder if they supported piracy as well in those videos, or something breaking their EULA or something. People always come out swinging, fuck corpos, etc, but oftentimes there is something shady going on as well, either consciously, or unconsciously.

Why bother? Run Linux or get a Mac.

This is actually a good thing. Competitive Windows is a thing and these people are ruining it for the rest of us.

Is this year of the Linux yet?

Is Windows 10 LTSC a thing still?

use bottles.org to run windows apps on Linux. All games run on Linux with it.

One thing I do not understand about HN and other online tech communities is how much they hype up linux as some paragon of usability and ease of use, when it's just obviously not the case.

"You don't need windows for gaming, 90% of games work on linux!" -- except the 10% that DON'T are all of the new, massive titles that people want to play. It's like saying "90% of the gears in the car work fine, just not 1st gear".

"There are 0 driver problems" -- obviously not true as some hardware only ships with windows hardware. Yes it's true your new network card or mouse won't have issues, but a lot of hardware simply doesn't have support, and a lot might be supported if you spend enough time fanagling.

"it's just as easy use as windows or mac" -- until you need to change one of many settings that hasn't been included in a control panel, because linux users have been more than happy to drop to config files and cli usages to tweak things (i.e. lots of stuff left out of system GUIs)

I don't know why people do this. Especially in communities that are technical (and thus tend to be "technically correct" about things), why people essentially lying (by omission, if nothing else) about Linux?

The best time to buy a MacBook Air (or Pro) or a Mac mini! Much less BS and you take it out of the box and use it within 5 minutes.