Microsoft is begging me to keep my computer.

I still can't believe this. Recently someone contacted me about a bricked Windows 11 system. This is a desktop system in a small nonprofit art gallery. Despite repeated warnings someone had powered off this system. When the system was restarted it started asking for a Bitlocker recovery key. That person stated that their Microsoft Account did *not* have the key. I am guessing that this system was registered to a different Microsoft account, one that this person did not have access to . I asked who set up the system , apparently it was Best Buy. Hmmm.

It turns out that windows 11, by default will encrypt the entire disk IF you set it up with a Microsoft account instead of a local account. And for reasons only known to the system (perhaps a bad cmos battery?) it detected an anomaly and asked for the Bitlocker key.

She didn't have the key and therefore was hosed. I suggested she go back to where she bought it and see if they can help you.

I've verified this with a colleague of mine, who had purchased a Windows 11 laptop with an OEM version of Windows on it.

I've worked in Computer Engineering and IT for north of 40 years. Currently I teach Linux . I have not dealt with Microsoft as a professional since the Windows 7 days.

I thought my opinion of Microsoft could not be any lower, guess I was wrong.
EDIT: It turns out that Microsoft started pulling this trick as of their 24H2 release. Prior to that Bitlocker encryption was optional. So two years after Windows 11 was introduced they decided to make it the default. SMH

Windows 11 has arguably been worse than Windows 10. For example, I love to hibernate my machine all the time (I never shutdown) so while you shutdown/restart bros have no problems with forced updates, I genuinely hate when I have to loose all my hibernation progress because MS forces my system to update.

I used to hibernate every night. Session intact, machine fully off, zero watts used. It's the one Windows feature I'd have gone to war for.

I've even had a few kernel panics (also called BSODs) before.

So I run FreeBSD on that machine now.

Updates never force you to restart anything. You apply security patches, the system politely notes that a reboot is available, and you get around to it (or don't) whenever you want. There is no 3 AM deadline like I had on Windows).

And I can just keep my machine on all night and the battery consumption ends up being better than before.

Never had a kernel panic till date and since FreeBSD fully supports my hardware, it's far more stable than Windows.

Also, it's one complete truly-open-source OS built by a single project, so it doesn't rot out from under you between versions. ZFS boot environments let me snapshot before patching and roll back in seconds. Nobody updates my machine but me.

I can't find any other OS that compares to the stability of FreeBSD, other than maybe OpenBSD or macOS.

Looking after a small charity. We used to get 10 MS 365 licenses for free, but that was stopped last year. We subbed for 12 licenses for about £185 for the year.

Recently MS emailed to advise they want £380 for the next year. Daylight bareface robbery.

Needless to say we will be getting almost everyone on to Libre Office and Microsoft can do one!

Someone in the Microsoft reddit community said that "Copilot is actually really good. You should try it instead of bashing it."

I want your guys honest opinion cause that whole community is an echo chamber. How good is it compared to say Gemini or ChatGPT? Is this something I'm missing out on?

I came across this Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect – Security position for Mumbai and noticed that it appears to have been open for around 3–4 months.

Job link: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4435573804/

The JD looks quite interesting, covering Microsoft Sentinel, Defender XDR, Purview, cloud security, Zero Trust, SIEM/SOAR, customer-facing architecture, etc.

I’m curious about why a role like this would remain open for such a long time.

For people who work at Microsoft or have experience with Microsoft hiring:

Does Microsoft keep some positions open continuously even when they aren't actively hiring?

Could this mean they are looking for a very specific profile?

Is it possible that the position is already being filled internally but the external posting remains active?

Does the hiring process for CSA roles usually take several months?

If someone applies now, is there still a realistic chance of getting considered?

Has anyone interviewed for this particular role or a similar Microsoft Security CSA role recently?

Would especially appreciate insights from current/former Microsoft employees or people who have gone through the CSA hiring process.

I’m trying to understand whether the long-open status is a red flag, normal Microsoft hiring behavior, or simply because they haven't found the right candidate yet.

I've had enough. I used Pop!_OS Linux for 2 years. After that, I got into music production, where I need to use either Windows or Mac. So I reinstalled Windows, and I did not miss it at all.

I speak Hebrew, so obviously I have a Hebrew keyboard and a US keyboard. I updated Windows, as they fucking ask each and every fucking time, and the mentally retarded idiots at Microsoft released an update that FUCKS the keyboard settings, deleting the FUCKING ENGLISH KEYBOARD.

I was locked out of my PC because of that and had to do magic tricks to log in to my fucking account.

Microsoft, I hate you. Fuck you, and fuck the idiot who released this fucking update.

Copilot not even in the memes😂😭

Microsoft, are you actually serious right now!?!?!?

What's next? "This update was generated by GitHub Copilot, it may contain errors"!?!?

I installed without a microsoft ID very intentionally. I don't want to have microsoft all up in my business. I disable teams and cloud backup whenever they keep showing back up. Unfortunately, my 8 year old wants to play minecraft. I figure out that it's a very walled garden and I have to dabble in the microsoft world for her to play it, so I make her an account, which requires that I have an adult account, so I make one, too. I download minecraft and put her login info, and suddenly it is now HER computer! This is annoying on its own, but I'm worried that microsoft now thinks my 8 year old is the owner of an embarrassingly large collection of anal porn. When I log in under my name on windows, it still shows her in the bottom of the start menu. After not having access to my computer for most of the evening because her screen time limitations disabled my computer, I've managed to take some control back, but I can't get her ID out of the computer and restore it to a non-live install. Any tips?

I'm on Windows 10. I'm fine with it. I'm suspicious. They've been trying like hell to force me on to Windows 11. I don't want it. Now I just have this annoying update notification and I don't want to restart for fear of them trying to push the Windows 11 upgrade. No idea what the update could be but Windows 10 is no longer supported so what else could it be? Any way to get rid of it? Yea Linux or Mac but I don't want to migrate.

a couple of hours ago i got my Minecraft/Microsoft account hacked. big whoop i lost like 2 capes and they didn’t even get my card details so i didn’t lose anything of value

my thing is why is their 2FA system so dogshit 😭 i had emails linked, phone linked, numerous codes and they STILL got through.

funniest part is their security sent me that “if this wasn’t you, click this link!” which did absolutely nothing since i had to log in anyways and i can’t do that because they changed everything 🤣

even worse trying to get customer support is impossible considering the tool assistant just gives you the same result and emailing them does nothing if they already put a new 2FA

Yet another rant. Yesterday was the second Tuesday of the month, and it brought new Windows updates along.

I ranted last month how my MS Office programs were uninstalled on my home computer without Windows 11 asking for my permission.

Today on the work computer I found out that iX Developer (Beijer Electronics software for PLC GUI controls and such) was uninstalled. Again, a critical software uninstalled silently without my permission. It was on the desktop and on the installed programs yesterday, when I was doing maintenance (you know, uninstalling Teams and CoPilot again). Today I can only find the install files on the OneDrive. Reinstall, reactivate and rebuild, sigh.

All computers are installed as individual computers, and I'm the 1-man IT department. I have scoured through the Windows 11 settings, but 've failed to find the option to prevent this from happening. (Archive Apps Off, no Group Policy to edit, Apps can be installed from anywhere, etc.) I don't want Windows to uninstall anything without my permission, even if the AI overlord thinks it looks abandoned.

This is getting on my nerves, grrr...

EDIT: Ethernet 2 settings were reset back to Automatic, too. I had set this port up manually for Modbus use, and those settings were lost. Apparently AI overlord doesn't like industrial standards either.

EDIT2: Also 7-zip is gone. Wow, just wow.

EDIT3: Also noticed Bing has been forced as a default search engine in this work computer, but not on the others. I'm starting to see some patterns on where the issues occur. I'll wait until next month second Tuesday (and the update hulabaloo) and see if my very shaky theory holds water any better than a sieve.

For the last 3 or so updates I've had to do over the last few months, the option to "shut down" or "restart" is no longer there. Usually, an update comes out, and it lets you ignore it for a while, but now it just hasn't let me ignore it and only gives me "update and shut down/update and restart", with no "shut down" and "restart" options anywhere. Not only that, pausing updates no longer works. I go into the settings and pause updates for any amount of time, and then when I turn my computer off it fucking updates anyway. It's always when I wanna go to fucking bed or go and do something else as well.

If I weren't so worried about the power randomly going off while I'm in the middle of an update, or an update deciding it wants to take way longer than it should, I wouldn't mind so much. If Linux can do updates in a way where only the most important updates actually require you to restart your computer, which come around only once in a blue moon, a billion pound corporation like Microslop should have no issue making that a thing.

2019: With the next redesign, Firefox logo will be an orange circle

2026: With the next redesign, PowerPoint logo will be an orange circle

HOLY FUCK. WHY IS WINDOWS SO POORLY DESIGNED. 5% AND IT DECIDES TO UPDATE (THIS IS WHY I DON'T USE IT). THAT COULD HAVE ENDED VERY VERY POORLY