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Microsoft kills official way to activate windows without internet (www.neowin.net)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Now when trying to activate the OS by attempting to call the phone number for Microsoft Product Activation, an automated voice response says the following: "Support for product activation has moved online.

Linux is this way, guys.

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[+] -25 points 10 months ago (34 children)

look fuck microsoft, but - who is trying to activate windows without any internet access at all?

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  • [–] 22 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Well, I've never done it because it's not part of my tasks, but for example industrial PCs used for SCADA usually run Windows, and they are never allowed on the internet, so...

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Nah, they're run by the laziest chucklefucks you've ever met - they're plugged right into a broadband modem with no firewall running bog standard teamviewer or RDP awaiting any connection (no filtering) because the people setting up and using these systems have no concept of infosec. They know how to set up their industrial system, plug it into the 'computer thingy', and hand it off the the municipal water dude who is a flat earth, anti-fluoride, moon-landing hoax, J6-denialist who knows nothing about technology, but wants to run the town's water treatment from his cell phone.

    (not that I'm jaded by small town dynamics or anything)

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    Other side of the same coin: I work for a municipality, and I can’t even connect my phone to the intranet because they use MAC whitelists for the entire network. The only thing non-whitelisted devices can even connect to is the (really shitty) public WiFi. Many cities used to be pretty lax about cybersecurity, but a few high profile attacks have made most of them (at least anything larger than a small town) rethink that stance. Hell, one city a few miles away had a ransomware attack that left their city services entirely unavailable for like three weeks. That was actually studied by lots of the local cities, to see what they can do to prevent similar attacks.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    We have our clients switch to Linux now. Ignition works well enough and it's so much cheaper. It has drawbacks compared to wonderware, or the Siemens stack though. But I'll take those issues over logging into their systems still running on winXP.

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  • [–] 43 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Sorry souls who don't want to create a MS account if they just need to reimage a PC or only need a local account. Such a blatant attempt at locking folks into their ecosystem. Same as Apple.

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  • [–] -3 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Use Pro edition and you aren't locked into an account.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Yeah. Owning the thing you pay for is a premium feature.

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  • [+] -6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    That doesn't make sense.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah, but that's apparently how Microsoft rolls, as you noted.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    💯 this. Yes, you can still create a local account from the Out of Box Experience with the Pro version when selecting "Domain Join". But my original statement still stands as this feature had to be added back in after many folks complained. Whereas the Home version has been slowly losing the methods to just make an account and go about your day. Pretty pathetic if you ask me.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Yes, you can still create a local account from the Out of Box Experience with the Pro version when selecting "Domain Join". But my original statement still stands as this feature had to be added back in after many folks complained

    [Citation needed]

    That never happened to me despite deploying hundreds of PCs in the early stages of the initial OS rollout. Even in nondomain systems, creating the local account was trivial, even if you did have to navigate through dark patterns to make you think you didn't have another option.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago*

    People who live in third world countries like the US who don't have Internet at home/internet isn't available to them because it's not profitable for the company providing for that area.

    And before you say phone, you have to have service to receive or make a phone call. There are places in this country that don't have either.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (10 children)

    Some years ago, I was using an ancient (even then) Dell laptop that I took with me to my grandparents summer camp for two weeks vacation. Northern Vermont, landline phone service only. My dad had sent me Win 7 Ultimate and I installed it sitting on the camp deck. I called in the activation.

    Not Windows, but I've reinstalled my Mac laptop OSes many times when I've swapped out a SSD. Also at camp. I did a full - unsupported no less! - install of Mojave macOS on an ancient MacPro that my aunt and uncle used to run their music and movies on. They had no internet and rented DVDs and ripped their own CDs. Once I showed my Uncle how to edit the track info in iTunes, he was off and running.

    I know lots of people - older mostly - with computers that only have internet access on their phones. FFS, my mom only has text on her flip phone, (her phone provider switched over to 4G and they sent her a smartphone of some kind which she could not use, so she sent it back and they got her a 4g enabled flip phone) and I'll mail her big USB sticks with movies and tv shows on them so she uses her laptop. No internet, no electricity even, unless it's from their solar panels.

    Pretty much anyone off the grid would phone in activation or roll with an OS that doesn't require it (like macOS and Linux).

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    I know lots of people - older mostly - with computers that only have internet access on their phones.

    exactly. you can use your phone to go to the windows activation site. you don’t need the PC you’re activating to have internet.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    When i'm saying "Older mostly" am talking about people in their 70's and 80's that don't use their phones for much more than texting and email.

    NGL, at 61 I can't use my phone for much more than that. I just cannot SEE it well enough for it to not be a massive frustrating ordeal.

    Just wait until presbyopia strikes. It's a bitch when the collagen breaks down in the body and the lenses in the eyes start to stiffen. Hit me in my mid 40's. Fuck.

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  • [+] -11 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Owning a summer camp, but ripping CDs?

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    If you have no internet but want your music as a file, that's how you go about it.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    Indeed! Of all things, uncle turned me on to higher bitrate 320k VBR, highest quality .mp3 rips.

    I got his CD collection after he died (his own music was lost as the drive had failed while he was in the nursing home) but before he passed, I took a few weeks and re-ripped everything for him. Gave him a junker MacBook and loaded up it and his iPod with his favorite music.

    The last day I saw him - 3 days before he died, he was already seeing people that weren't there and talking to them, which is part of the dying process I'm told...

    I put his iPod on him and played him his favorite artist - Miles Davis and he stopped when the song Générique (go listen to it, it is a beautiful song) came on and he looked at me - SAW me - and smiled and said it was his favorite Miles tune.

    We chatted for a few minutes more and he fell asleep and I told him I loved him and gave him a kiss and left for work. Passed away the day after the Eclipse in 2024.

    Best gift I got was that jazz library from him.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    Grandparents owned the summer camp.

    Grandfather was a union electrician for over 40 years. Retired in 1994. Made fantastic coin and bought the camp in the mid-70's, for less than $20k. Landlines only that far north into Vermont. Grandparents were both in their late 70's early 80's when the internet took off, so it meant nothing to them. Both were gone of old age by 2020.

    Aunt was the black sheep of the family and her husband - the uncle - were old alcoholic hippies that lived hand to mouth. Welfare recipients with drug and alcohol problems who both died - one of alcohol fueled dementia (Koursakoff's Disease) and the other of sepsis (bone infection in the foot) from unmanaged diabetes - at the start of 2024.

    Your point is?

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    „Ripping“ meant something else to me, and the tech fell out of fashion before I could know better.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago*

    Ah, yeah. Times and terms change.

    I still will pick up old CD's at thrift stores and flea markets fr a few bucks and rip them to my computer system.

    I have a monstrous music library. (don't even get me going on the vinyl LPs I've got)

    Had a friend give me a used service drive from a computer repair shop and it had a customer's backup music library on it as large as my own at the time. 80+ GB of stuff.

    Incorporated that in a heartbeat.

    For years I did repairs and drive replacements for the kids in the neighborhood and often they'd be more than happy to let me duplicate their music libraries. I didn't charge a lot so it was a win/win situation.

    That and finding a shocking amount of music on dumpster dive laptops.. esp machines from the 2008 - 2012 era.

    Know a family (fairly well off) that sold a summer home a few years back and they moved on a ton of stereo equipment and one was a crazy big Sony CD changer that had a carousel of 100 disks in it.. Guess what was still filled with CD's?

    Granted it's "grandma" music, and lots of stuff like Burt Bacharach and Barbara Streisand, but some of that is actually really good, solid songwriting. Not my favorite kind of music, but given the AI slop online now, it makes it easy to hear how shitty that is.

    What, if I may ask, does „Ripping“ mean to you?

    Am always interested in different takes on words.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    You're asking the wrong question. You should be asking "who is trying to use Windows without any Internet access at all?"

    Which is definitely some people/situations. It's not the standard user-centric use case that Microsoft expects, but it does exist.

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