[jjoonathan]

Letting windows update is treating it like a toy.

Remember that time Microsoft let FTDI brick a bunch of knockoffs through the first party update mechanism? Remember when they locked up a bunch of embedded devices with Windows 7 support nags? Remember when they dropped Candy Crush in your start menu, when they decided local accounts now had to be cloud linked, and when they enabled Cortana by default and made it increasingly difficult to opt-out? When they decided to take 30 minutes of your morning without asking (hope you weren't planning on using the computer for anything important)?

When it comes to high-reliability embedded OSes, Microsoft is a case study in inept paternalism. Updates regularly cause problems. Between updates and malware spreading behind a NAT, I'm not at all convinced updates are the lesser of two evils. Ideally, these applications wouldn't run windows, but since they often do, IMO the best approach is to isolate them to the greatest degree possible which includes blocking auto-update (note: not turning it off, blocking it, along with everything else you can get away with).

[i_am_proteus]

Local accounts don't have to be cloud-linked! Microsoft just employs dark patterns to make it hard to find how to opt out, and prompts you to "finish setting up your PC" by creating a Microsoft account, after every reboot.

I've also rebooted to find out about Microsoft Edge, the new browser that's now pinned to my taskbar, even after removing Edge several times.

MS finished making Windows into a stable, usable OS and then promptly began turning it into adware.

[alpaca128]

> Local accounts don't have to be cloud-linked!

I just installed a new Windows 10 VM last week and there was no option to use a local account anymore. None. No dark pattern menu link somewhere hidden in a corner of the screen with low contrast, only the choice between logging in or creating a new Microsoft account. Which took me longer than the whole rest of the installation, because as it turns out generic addresses like "[e-mail]" are already taken and Microsoft seems very anal about certain choice words.

But at the same time they don't seem to mind if I enter a date from 2018 as my birthdate and the calendar dialog includes decades of future dates, but at least they got the forced online account working...

[aeiou1234]

offline accounts are only available if you are not connected to the internet, or at least you a get a visible create offline user button/link. last month i did a fresh install with the latest iso and i had to unplug my ethernet cable

[richardfey]

Can't get any darker than that!

[emteycz]

The option will appear if the machine is not connected to the Internet.

[i_am_proteus]

I installed Windows a few weeks ago and found the option to "set up later," but the ISO is several months old and the computer wasn't connected to network at install time.

[pelasaco]

Sorry, but are we talking about Desktop operating system? Because if that's the topic, Linux and BSD have much to learn from Microsoft. Including stability. I can tell you, because it's my job: if you don't want to use outdated software, you should go with rolling distributions, that became stable around 2016. Before that every update was a schrödingers update. Windows are able to rollback updates since Windows 2003.

> Between updates and malware spreading behind a NAT, I'm not at all convinced updates are the lesser of two evils.

You can get your answer looking back to events like Nimda and Code Red.

[alpaca128]

I would have agreed with you before Windows 10 came out. Afterwards I had to regularly reinstall Windows on most of my machines as well as laptops of close family members because whether it was a boot loop, BSOD every 10 minutes, random switching of keyboard layouts or just performance issues to a point the mouse lagged, there was a whole wave of new bugs suddenly appearing after some forced update.

Now I run a rolling distro since 2018. Development got a whole lot simpler, everything is more enjoyable and to date there's been exactly one noteworthy issue which was resolved after a quick search and 10 minutes.

And since then I've never seen a "new update available" popup dialog, no ads, no Cortana, no "smart" features, and most definitely no need to install third-party software to actually have a usable file search. I even update much more frequently than Windows 10 every forced me to, because for some reason I just never have any issues and I can just do it in the background.