- Microsoft inadvertently highlighted the benefits of using a local account over a Microsoft account on Windows 11 in a recent support page update.
- Using a local account allows for offline sign-in, is independent of cloud services, and limits settings, files, and applications to a single device, enhancing privacy.
- Despite these benefits, Microsoft requires internet access or workarounds for the initial setup of Windows 11, making it challenging to use a local account from the start.
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I remember it used to be quite common to install an OS and not have internet access. The OS simply lacked the correct LAN or WAN driver; alternatively one might be setting up an OS during an outage.
This is actually a massive use-case. Basically every piece of heavy machinery is using the OS it shipped with. Those systems naturally are forbidden from connecting to the internet but happily plug away at their job.
Legacy software in general is a great reason; retro gaming on period-appropriate hardware and OS, for example.
Plus, ideally, working with or storing sensitive data better be on a non-exposed machine.
O, yeah, completely forgot about air gaped machines. Very strong point!
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Retro gaming on period-appropriate hardware and OS in 20 years will. (And there likely won’t be security updates for the OS, you would be dumb to connect it to the internet)
Heavy machinery shipping with windows today does.
Your OS not having the correct lan/wan driver happens even today (just less often).
Having an internet outage happens today as well.
All the use cases I mentioned are relevant with Windows 11. There is a reason people have been yelling Linux around every corner, and it is because of continued bad decisions by Microsoft like requiring and internet connection for stuff that simply shouldn’t.
OK, look, I don’t like the online auth requirement for Windows 11, I think it’s dumb and finicky. I’m not trying to defend it here, I was just trying to correct the record on a slightly misleading summary…
…but come on, any user with those needs can work around the login in like five minutes.
Retro gaming in 20 years will either work just fine on the next version of Windows or work on a Win11 install supporting an offline account. Heavy machinery shipping with Windows will presumably ship in a state where it can be authetnticated, so it should have some way to be online or to update to a version of Windows that does have auth servers, if Win11 stops having those for some reason. Bad drivers or simply not having connectivity hardware just requires using a USB device. Your phone will USB tether long enough to log in to Windows on first install just fine, I’ve done it before.
Don’t get me wrong, it shouldn’t be needed, and it’s a stupid annoyance. The real answer to all those use cases is using the known workarounds to support offline accounts on first boot that MS should continue to surface and offer as a supported option. But let’s not be disingenuously obtuse about how the software actually works. I’ve done way worse to keep a legacy OS running on an old machine.
The idea that computers should always be online is less than 20 years old. Even in the early 2000s it wasn’t uncommon for most employees in a company to NOT have Internet access. Companies, and people, bought or wrote software and then ran it to accomplish the task. No internet needed.
I’d argue that many employees in regular non-technical positions STILL don’t require Internet access to do their job unless they have to sign into some kind of cloud portal
I vividly remember the first time I heard someone suggest an always-online computer being a thing. I couldn’t imagine the use for that, and the security implications terrified me. Let alone the cost, because of course I assumed I’d be paying for that by the minute.
Shouldn’t give people ideas, I suppose.
I barely notice when I don’t have Internet access anymore, because I use my PC as a media server to stream to every other device in my house. Not having the Internet basically just restricts the games I can play slightly