[HN Gopher] Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into usin...
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Tell HN: Windows 10 might have tricked you into using a online
account
Has this happened to more people? I just noticed this, and so this
happened to a few friends of mine. I am familiar with dark
patterns, and read carefully and I though I had dodged all
Microsoft attempts at trying to register me into their online
system, but somehow they got me.
Author : xchip
Score : 60 points
Date : 2023-01-15 20:56 UTC (2 hours ago)
| techload wrote:
| This will happen when you sign in to any Microsoft product, such
| as Office, Teams or Onedrive. After you input email and password,
| there is a window dialog with a big button to use that credential
| to manage the device, i.e., your computer, converting your local
| into an online account. And there is an option, with small text,
| to "use only in Microsoft applications", or words to that effect.
| This is easy to get caught, as everybody won't read dialog
| windows and rapidly click on whatever big button.
| pndy wrote:
| In similar way instagram shortly after being purchased by
| facebook tricked me into login with fb account - the now "old"
| login option was placed at the bottom of window and it was done
| in small font that could be seen as copyright footer for a
| distracted eye.
| mistermithras wrote:
| Can you provide details of what you found and how?
| xchip wrote:
| I noticed in the accounts control panel that my local account
| became an online one.
|
| As I said, I pay a lot of attention into not falling into
| Microsoft's dark patterns, but somehow I did and my local
| account became an online one. I am wondering if this has
| happened to others too.
| reiichiroh wrote:
| You have to be disconnected from wifi and Ethernet to be offered
| the option of a local account. This was removed in 11.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| tester756 wrote:
| I've never performed such a thing and I'm using local account.
|
| Maybe that's because I have Win10 Pro? idk.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Not entirely, you can open a terminal and input a command to
| bypass it. It is kind of ironic, though, considering "open a
| terminal and input a command" is usually considered to be a
| take-that against GNU/Linux.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Simpler option is to enter a@a.com and any password. It'll
| error and then let you create local account.
| nickjj wrote:
| Yep, this still works at least on Windows 10. I did it
| about 3-4 months ago when setting up a laptop for someone.
| You do need to fail a few times in a row before it lets you
| create a local account.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Good to know. What is the command? And what's the shortcut to
| get a terminal?
| xenophonf wrote:
| Per https://www.ghacks.net/2022/05/13/how-to-bypass-the-
| microsof..., you can type Shift-F10 to break into a command
| prompt during OOBE and run this command: OOBE\BYPASSNRO. Or
| you can try logging in with a banned email address like
| no@thankyou.com.
| gpvos wrote:
| Doesn't work on the Surface with W11 that I recently
| acquired. I managed to attach a keyboard, but Shift-F10
| had no effect.
| kramerger wrote:
| Coincidentally, that's why I am not using win11, despite all
| its improvements over win10.
|
| (The one i miss most is GUI support in WSL )
| tssva wrote:
| I use Windows 11 Professional and was able to install using a
| local account while connected to WiFi.
| temac wrote:
| On "old" versions you could - or at least you could not
| connect and it would allow to create a local account in this
| case. On the last one MS says you can't OOBE without the
| Internet, even with Pro, and at a first glance it seems you
| actually can't, but then you just press shift+F10, type
| oobe\bypassnro, and then it reboots and you actually can
| again.
|
| I'm not sure why they consider that it makes any sense.
| Probably just a motherfucker higher-up who really like dark
| patterns and annoying their customers^W advertising targets,
| so MS can resell more private informations and they get a big
| bonus.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| If you know what the UI looked like while you accomplished
| this, that would be useful. I've had to reach back behind the
| machine, unplug the ethernet, and reboot to get it to realize
| I'm just trying to setup a spare machine for visitors.
| wooptoo wrote:
| Not really. You can get around this with:
|
| Shift + F10 > taskmgr > Network Connection flow > End task
| techload wrote:
| If you create the bootable Windows 11 media with Rufus, it
| "allows to bypass the mandatory requirement for a Microsoft
| account on Windows 11 22H2. (NB: Network _MUST_ be temporarily
| disabled for the local account creation to be proposed). Also
| add an option to skip all collection questions (Sets all
| answers to "Don't allow")".
| virgulino wrote:
| "Switch your Windows 10 device to a local account" support
| article:
|
| https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switch-your-wind...
| alar44 wrote:
| Just fucking do it. I used to fight MS on principle, but if you
| just buy into the ecosystem it's really convenient. Your data is
| being stolen everywhere. Using a local account doesn't make you
| any safer or secure etc.
| ineptech wrote:
| It's not about making me safer, it's about keeping offline OSes
| as an option. The ability to buy a general purpose computer and
| do arbitrary things with it is something we take for granted,
| but will never get back once we lose it.
| genewitch wrote:
| is there any guarantee that if i annoy microsoft on github or
| xbox gaming that microsoft will not disable my windows account
| tied to those email addresses?
|
| threat surfaces go beyond ephemeral and tracking data.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Windows 10 definitely tricked me into creating a Microsoft
| account, and I didn't realize I'd been tricked until later. Felt
| pretty sleazy. Windows 11 being even more of that kind of
| garbage, and the Steam Deck being a good enough gaming platform,
| means I've probably built my last Windows PC.
| bitL wrote:
| It happened to me when I logged into XBOX for Forza 5 - voila,
| Windows 10 suddenly had that account registered as well!
| 2devnull wrote:
| It's not even possible in windows 11. You can leave Microsoft
| behind, or accept it and move on. I think apple does this too.
| You have options, but they don't include Microsoft or apple. I
| think chromeos, for now, lets you opt out. I could be wrong about
| that.
| neilv wrote:
| > _You can leave Microsoft behind,_
|
| Everyone currently afflicted can make the most of the US 3-day
| weekend, write this installer raw to a USB stick/drive, boot
| it, and overwrite Microsoft forever:
|
| https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/d...
|
| Or, if it's a laptop that needs closed WiFi firmware blobs, use
| this USB stick image instead:
|
| https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...
| aeadio wrote:
| For some reason, "I think Apple does this too" always comes up
| in the discussions about Microsoft forcing online accounts
| within Windows.
|
| MacOS doesn't do this. Accounts are machine local. iCloud
| integration is an optional layer on top. Always has been.
| Nothing has changed.
|
| Maybe give the OS a try before assuming Apple is following all
| the same antipatterns just because they also happen to fall
| into the category of "big tech".
| anothernewdude wrote:
| AppleID is everywhere.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| It is possible to set up MacOS without an iCloud account, but
| they do try hard to get you to sign in. You have to be
| diligent about looking for buttons like "Skip," "Not now,"
| and "I'll do it later."
|
| Fortunately those options still exist, but the pressure to
| sign in has been increasing over the last several versions of
| MacOS.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Em... _No._ Have you used a Mac? They only ask you once
| during setup, and have only one popup asking if you are
| sure.
| LightHugger wrote:
| Apple is worse, they will randomly lock you out of devices
| you own even though you have the password and demand you
| verify on a different one. I had relatives who only had one
| apple device, what a nightmare fixing that was.
|
| It's the big tech equivalent of stop and frisk.
| spirit557 wrote:
| Windows 11 pro doesnt require an ms account, you can create a
| local account.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| This is no longer correct with the latest 22H2 December
| update. In order to circumvent this now requires getting to
| the command prompt (Shift+F10) during install and issuing a
| command to bypass the requirement.
| type0 wrote:
| Good to know, will be teaching this trick to my grandma,
| wish me luck
| superjan wrote:
| Luckily your grandma has a grandchild who can do that for
| her.
| trwired wrote:
| Yes, this happened to me when I was forced to reinstall Windows
| due to a stubborn booting issue. I've been growing uncomfortable
| with the idea of having an adversarial relationship with such an
| essential piece of software as an OS for a while already and this
| prompted me to try out Linux as my daily driver. Been pretty
| satisfied with the results and Linux is where I do most of my
| computing these days.
| svillar wrote:
| What do you mean? How is this a problem?
|
| I think you can still use Windows without having an online
| account. But this pattern is similar to Apple having your logged
| on to your Apple/iCloud account when using your devices.
| xchip wrote:
| It is a problem to get registered into some organization using
| dark patterns.
|
| Android is straight forward and doesn't insist every single
| time into drafting you with tricky dialogs.
| ailef wrote:
| I think I know what you are referring to. When setting up my new
| laptop Windows was asking me to sign in with an account. This
| step could apparently be skipped (a friend told me later) but I
| didn't notice at the time. I just formatted everything and
| installed Linux.
| xchip wrote:
| yeah, I thought I had dodged that trap every single time, but
| somehow I still fell into it.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Windows 11 latest installer doesn't even present the option to
| use a local account. However, the mechanism to bypass this is to
| enter in a fake Microsoft Login ID and then wait for it to fail,
| then select something like "Other Options" at the dialog that
| comes up and then there's an option to use a local account.
|
| I think you can also install without internet and you'll get the
| local account option too, but I have not tried it yet.
|
| Super annoying. I ran into this last week while reinstalling
| Windows on a dead NVMe drive.
| jrockway wrote:
| This definitely happened to me a while ago. I'm not that upset
| about it, except that I spent some time changing all my local
| accounts from "jon" to "jrockway", and signing in with my email
| address made my local account "jon". Now when I ssh places, I
| have to supply -l or properly add an entry to ~/.ssh/config
| because this is the only account I have that's not named
| "jrockway". All in all, this reduces the enjoyment in my life by
| 0.0000000000000001% but I'm not losing too much sleep over it.
|
| (My favorite Windows 10 update was the one where you installed
| it, and instead of getting your desktop on reboot, there was this
| weird slideshow that said "HELLO" "ALL YOUR FILES ARE EXACTLY
| WHERE YOU LEFT THEM". I thought it was malware, but that's
| apparently something a large team of experts at Microsoft thought
| would be fun for their users. Maybe they were really excited
| about some filesystem bug that they fixed? I'll never
| understand.)
| [deleted]
| windowsismid123 wrote:
| Did it switch you magically or something?
|
| I actually don't mind the microsoft account integration but I
| also have a name issue. Microsoft will name my account the
| equivilent "jons" instead of "jsmith" but all my ssh logins are
| the latter.
|
| I just make an offline account first and then change my account
| to a microsoft one in user settings and it seems to keep the
| first name.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| God, the number of panicked IT support calls I got over that
| particular phrasing. It was quite the month.
| leonidasv wrote:
| Let me try guessing it... most people thought it was some
| kind of ransomware smiling at them?
| pdpi wrote:
| I think the "files are where you left them" dialogue is meant
| to assuage the concerns of people who just did a big OS upgrade
| and are a bit anxious about it all.
|
| It's still a pretty poorly thought out dialogue, though.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| You know what reassures me that nothing has gone wrong? When
| unexpectedly I am greeted with big white text insisting
| everything is okay. Imagine if you got a letter through the
| post out of the blue saying "You don't have cancer." I can
| only imagine how I would probably suddenly be a lot more
| worried about having cancer than before having gotten that
| letter.
|
| Whoever came up with that idiotic dialogue is unhinged and
| detached from reality and has no business touching a user
| interface.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| It's ironic that years after Microsoft created that dialog,
| Windows 10 comes out with an update that deletes your files
| from where you left them:
| https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-confirms-major-
| wind...
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I honestly always thought it was some sort of GLaDOS/Hal 9000
| style joke. "don't worry Dave, we're still watching all your
| files" or something, I actually laughed out loud when I saw it.
| It's even more hilarious to me if that was supposed to be
| serious.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| You should be able to fix your local user name in lusrmgr.msc
| (select your account and press F2).
|
| I'm using a Microsoft account, but to avoid this nonsense, I
| created it as a local account (because this laptop shipped with
| Windows 11 Pro RTM, so I could still do that) and converted it
| to a Microsoft account. If I didn't have this option, I would
| probably create a Microsoft account with the dumb default name,
| then create a local account, delete the old account, and
| convert my new local account.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| I now have an exact sequence of log ins so that I know
| exactly the path on Windows everything will be. And the
| naming / pathing of online MS accounts is confusing and
| annoying.
| temac wrote:
| In French, we once had a poor translation that said: "Laissez-
| nous tout". Well the "leave everything to us" original was
| maybe already kind of weird.
| superjan wrote:
| That could have been be the update after the one that famously
| deleted the content of your download folder.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| The only "trick" I'm aware of is when signing into accounts in
| certain (Microsoft) applications. You will get a prompt where you
| need to select to only sign into this specific app.
|
| Other patterns pushing you to use a Microsoft account are not
| dark at all. They're _everywhere_ though!
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(page generated 2023-01-15 23:00 UTC)