Subj : Re: negate the new Win11 To : August Abolins From : Ky Moffet Date : Sun Dec 28 2025 16:29:00 AUGUST ABOLINS wrote: > Hello Ky.Moffet! > > ** On Friday 26.12.25 - 19:05, you wrote: > >>> TPM + CoPilot + Bitlocker + SecureBoot ..all work together and >>> strip your ability for privacy when you want it. > >> They would, but all can be disabled. > > I've read that if some systems already come with bitlocker > activated, deactivating it triggers a lock on the current ssd/ > hdd, ..and reversing bitlocker state will not recover. so, > then the only option is to reainstall the Win OS. This happened with Win11 Home (NOT Pro or Workstation) after one particular update. It is not the norm. And you can permanently decrypt the drive, if you haven't lost your bitlocker key, tho I imagine it's a long slow job. If you've lost your key, and don't have it stored in the associated Microsoft account, you're SOL. In fact, you can use Winaero Tweaker to disable updates, if you want. (I did that on one of the netbooks because for some reason it's already fallen out of support, and it kept trying to update. So I disabled updates, end of problem.) >> The point isn't so much snooping as accustoming everyone to >> everything being in the cloud and by subscription. That, IMO, >> is what TPM and Bitlocker are really about > > Well.. TPM ties the device to the activity on the PC, and that > identity is shared to the mothership - MS. Easy fix: Disable the TPM chip in the BIOS, or unplug it from the motherboard. Use Rufus to install Win11 and you don't need TPM. I'm sitting right next to such a Win11 system as we speak. It doesn't even have TPM, at all. It only has a local account, not a Microsoft account. Cortana is disabled, and there is no SecureBoot. >> -- now that we have near-universal broadband, >> Microsoft's old wet dream of Windows by Subscription is >> becoming practical. Enterprise business welcomes this, >> because it offloads a huge amount of liability and expense. >> They are Microsoft's real customers. Home users are not >> customers, we are a support cost.. > > Businesses should consider linux, imho. The costs could then be > less! :D It's been tried. A whole city system in Germany attempted it for a year or so, and fled back to Microsoft. Another is trying it right now, I expect that to end similarly. Linux has gotten better, but your options are extremely limited (see below). Unless you're running webservers, or databases (in which case you should use BSD, not linux) it's impractical. There are just too many ways for the average desktop distro to break. So you're confined to either Ubuntu (Canonicall) or Fedora (RedHat), because that's where you can get a support contract, and you're stuck with the Gnome** desktop (because it's much more locked in, and is also the only one that's officially supported). And Ubuntu lost its marbles and decided they must rewrite the core utils in Rust, and at present the rewrites are only about 90% functional (when they shipped it, basic things like TIME weren't working) which caused chaos. There's a lot of DEI insanity and everything-must-be-rewritten-in-Rust nonsense going on in the linux world right now, and if I were a business IT department, I'd be backing away at top speed. Business can't afford the downtime, which can amount to millions of dollars per MINUTE. And if you don't have a support contract, that is a legal liability problem because you are not "conforming to industry standards" and if something goes wrong, YOU are the easy target in court. ** I loathe Gnome, I'd rather stick forks in my eyes. Fedora is supposedly going to start supporting KDE, which is vastly more flexible, but that is also the problem -- KDE is difficult to lock down for support purposes (support needs everything identical everywhere). I like my linux boxen, but I have no illusions about its broader practicality. þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com (454:1/1) .