[BuyMyBitcoins]

I would have cut Microsoft a lot of slack if the purpose of Windows 11 was to cut down on the sheer amount of cruft and legacy jank that Windows has acquired over the years.

Alas, Windows 11 is merely rounded corners, a worse file explorer, telemetry galore, and a mandatory Microsoft account meant to hock OneDrive and Copilot on unsuspecting laypersons everywhere.

Even simple applications like calculator and photo viewer now launch with a noticeable delay, no doubt because they have to try and communicate with some Microsoft service somewhere in the cloud before letting someone use an application locally.

[fakedang]

All valid points but it's definitely possible to use Win 11 without a Microsoft account.

[BuyMyBitcoins]

Correct, for now. It is getting increasingly difficult to bypass and it’s not unreasonable to think that the command line and registry tweaks that are still available today will get disabled in the near future. Microsoft has already disabled a few bypasses.

[bigfatkitten]

Bypasses will continue to be available for as long as Microsoft still wants to make money from government agencies with isolated networks.

Just means you might eventually have to pirate some special SKU of Windows that you can't buy as a normal user.

[fakedang]

Command line and registry tweaks? I didn't bother with any of those and got an unlinked account set up the minute I first booted up Windows, as did all the non-technical folks in my family. Sure, the option is obscured very much during the first launch process, but it's still very much doable by someone without any technical chops.

[poincaredisk]

How long ago was that? As far as I know it really is pretty hidden nowadays.

[theandrewbailey]

That's the BS that turned me off Windows 11. With Windows 10 ending support this October, I've moved migrated my primary PC to Linux.