to ubiquitous shit-shoveling malware appliances controlled by some of the worst elements of society.

Hmmm, I wonder which background economical system we all live in that could explain why every single technology ends up controlled by the top 1% to make our lives more miserable and their profits higher...

Those kinds of computers still exist, it's called Linux.

The future was here, once upon a time.

Rufus can be used to disable account creation along with other settings.

This is the rule for any account or mobile game, too - if it asks your age before asking for consent to farm, put any age below 13. It'll either not farm you because it's illegal or it'll kick you out. If the latter, good riddance really

If that actually becomes a thing people do, that could prompt MS to start to require either submitting to a face scan or showing some government ID just to install Windows, though, if the way Google's handling KYC on YT if your account gets flagged as underage, and soon Android app dev, as well as KYC going out across other sites, is any indication.

I'm pretty sure having to KYC just to install an OS is the last thing people want right now.

potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use

Oh no, onedrive not working or the office nagging screen missing in the start menu, how will we cope.

collecting data, and training AI of course.

It's not our mentality, it's their strategy.

Wars breed new strategies.

Sometimes it's free trade as a carrot and embargo as a stick, like with, well, one can try to nail it to Napoleonic wars, but as old as life. Sometimes it's mass production and standardization and ergonomics and scientific industrial design, one can try to nail these to WWII, but also as old as life. And sometimes it's controlled escalation as a way to reach your goals without triggering nuclear response, which one can nail to the Cold War.

American strategy of the Cold War is being used against world markets, ladies and gentlemen. Together with the previous two strategies mentioned.

The Soviet one was the opposite, to try to make even the smallest transgression cause firmly the same response, so that controlled escalation wouldn't work, but unfortunately one is founded in human psychology (plus game theory) and the other in rational knowledge (just game theory), the latter always loses. It was called scientific-technical revolution and meant literally its name - instead of gradual escalation, which favors the stronger side, you should create technical means to punch a fatal wound, nothing gradual.

So - the subscriptions themselves matter very little, they are just slowly transitioning everything big to dependence upon remote components available over the Internet.

It's funny, actually, so much gradual work, and in the end it'll be just wasted time - even making computers is not magic. State of the art processes could as well be that for most of humanity, but for many purposes Pentium MMX is a good enough computer, and such are not magic.

And especially making computer software of the kind that's being "metropolized" like this is not magic. Most of it is complex simply because of legacy, backwards compatibility and as a barrier for competitors making alternative implementations.

All Microsoft had to do for Windows to remain the most popular home and office OS in the world for decades to come, was to just not fucking suck.

Why wait? Linux Mint will run the shit out of your laptop right now.

I can add that in my experience, switching to Linux tends to have a positive impact on performance and keep the laptop usable for longer, I highly recommend you try it with your current laptop.

You're going to immediately wonder why you waited so long.

If you have a drive where you can back up your stuff before installing a new OS, there's no need to wait.

I could see them requiring government-issued ID. The age verification laws coming into effect in various states and countries make this a logical step for Microsoft. They might even start their own age verification service where you give them your ID and they vouch for your age with the sites you visit in Edge. Of course it would have the totally accidental side effect that everything you do on your computer could be monitored and legally tied to your identity.

I've been using Linux exclusively for more than ten years. You've made the right choice. As if you needed anyone to tell you 😆

I just click on “domain login”

It’s regular Windows 11, not Enterprise

You need to have 11 Pro or better to domain join a computer.

Your computer would also need to be joined to your domain to allow the login, so there is definitely some config going on that is not available to the typical home user.

I don't think they ever said they plan to require it for Windows Pro or above skus. It's only home (you know the one business shouldn't be using anyway) that they said they wanted to enforce it on.