Comment by 999900000999 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 999900000999 | Hacker News Reader

Blame Microsoft.

Across multiple laptops the Win 11 iso doesn't have Wifi drivers. And since we're in hell, you can't finish the setup process and actually use your computer without an Internet connection. Since then you'd be able to run an installer for the WiFi drivers.

Luckily you can use an Android phone to create an Internet bridge which will allow you to proceed.

However, The OEMs will automatically install CrapWare( we should start calling it this) even on vanilla Windows installs.

Compared to my last few CachyOS installs where everything just works out of the box. I don't need to provide my email address to use my computer.

Honestly as long as I can disable secureboot and install Linux it's ok. The moment I can't do this I'll be using legacy hardware ( or import a laptop from the EU where this is banned).

Edit: Hopefully the EU will make secure boot an option we can disable...

To be fair normal people don't care. My friend needed a new laptop, and since she's not too worried about the latest specs I just picked up what I could find at target for 300$. She is never going to reinstall. When Windows messes itself up in a year or two she'll probably just buy another 300$ laptop.

You can finish win 11 setup without internet by pressing shift f10 and entering OOBE\BYPASSNRO, it will reboot, then select continue without internet.

This is absolutely madness

If this isn't explained during the setup process, it doesn't count. Magic undocumented incantations are not a user interface. Normal users will never discover this.

I've done my share of installing all kinds of OS's and flashing Android ROMs and I feel like I re-discovered crtl+C ctrl+V all over again with this revelation.

And this is the only remaining loophole.

Because they closed the one where you use a fake email and get the password wrong.

Because they closed the one where you could fake not having an internet connection.

Because they removed the workflow to set up a local account. After they used dark patterns and misleading language to convince people to set up MS accounts instead.

It's a steaming load of shit.

Your forgetting the darkest pattern.

Where Microsoft keeps your bit locker keys in your forced Microsoft account instead of letting you save them to USB drive.

Why not at least give the user choice? Maybe I want a simple password to decypt ? Maybe I don't care about encryption.

Then again, it's not my computer anymore. I'm sharing it with Microsoft.

And they don't even warn you that's the case, or prompt you to save said key to a separate location off-device and in your control.

This is why you have to pay me to use Microsoft products. Their user experience is contentious with the continual degradation. The only nice thing I have to say about Microsoft is that when I retire, I will no longer be forced to engage with them and their enshitification.

They are even trying to push out local user accounts on their embedded / IoT version of their OS. The company I work for is evening having me port their product's hosted OS from Windows to Linux so they don't have to deal with their hostel user experience.

However, The OEMs will automatically install CrapWare( we should start calling it this) even on vanilla Windows installs.

MS itself started doing that in Win10.

Only on Windows Home, though. Windows Professional has none of that bullshit and I've done many installs.

Anyone who is this passionate about computers should be buying a Professional license anyway, namely to get proper access to Group Policy and other things peasants won't care for.

OP here, I run a computer shop that handles consumer computers. People bring me machines they purchased from electronics store. So i have to mainly contend with what is out there. I looked into getting into a partnership with a reseller, but since I dont really have much revenue it always seems like a zero sum game. Sometimes customers want me to purchase laptops for them, and this particular model I had trouble with was one of them. I'll admit I'm not very versed in areas I should be focusing on if I need to purchase OEM products because I am mostly a system builder for gamers. If anyone has any recommendations for getting system licensing and hardware from 3rd parties that's not to much of a upfront expense, I'm all ears.

It depends on your hardware, it has nothing to do with Home vs Pro.

More specifically, look up "WPBT" - this is something MS did in cooperation (collusion?) with the OEMs.

>Windows Professional has none of that bullshit and I've done many installs.

Windows Professional has a lot of bullshit.Yesterday I lost 3 hours because, after a crash, Windows will run an "online checkdisk" and die before completion. Pulling the ethernet cable solved the issue. (this machine does not and will not have a wifi connection).

Good thing that now the regular debian image includes non free firmwares so wifi cards work during the setup!

IIRC Windows 11 doesn't even have WiFi drivers for older Microsoft Surface tablets. I've got a Surface from ~2017 and I had to do a dance to get a fresh install on there.

We’ve taken to recommending Rufus in our setup guides rather than the Windows installation media tool due to the lack of recent Wi-Fi drivers in vanilla Windows.

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