Here's another pernicious thing about Windows 11

I just came across this gem from Joel Hruska at ExtremeTech, and had to share it:

I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

Preach, Brother!

His reasons cover the entire gamut, beginning with the fact that Windows 11's new online and account requirements literally make it harder to him to do his job, and progressing to the fairly fundamental point that his PC is not, in fact, the internet:

To me, my PC and “the internet” are two entirely different things. I connect to the latter to download files, read news, and watch content, but it is not the totality of my personal computer. Using an online account to log into my personal PC breaches the distinction between the two. Weird as it is — because I’m willing to admit this is a personal oddity — I find that distinction matters to me. It actually matters a lot. I don’t want my local Windows account to be synonymous with an online login.

But that's not the biggest reason why Hruska is digging in his heels about this. No, the biggest reason, the real deal breaker, is simply that Microsoft keep trying to force the issue.

My problem with Microsoft and non-local accounts is this: Since the introduction of Windows 10, Microsoft has pulled every dirty trick in the book. It has obfuscated the ability to create a local account by hiding it in unclear language. It has deployed installers that hid the option to create a local account unless you were offline when you ran setup. It has deployed “Get Windows 10” tools that were so aggressive, they acted more like malware than a product built by a Fortune 500 company.

Reminder: "Most secure version of Windows ever" is setting a very low bar

Closely on the heels of last week's Windows 11 announcement event, we've received a timely reminder of just how riddled with bugs Windows has actually been for a long time, from Tom Warren at The Verge:

Microsoft is warning Windows users about an unpatched critical flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service. The vulnerability, dubbed PrintNightmare, was uncovered earlier this week after security researchers accidentally published a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit. While Microsoft hasn’t rated the vulnerability, it allows attackers to remotely execute code with system-level privileges, which is as critical and problematic as you can get in Windows.

[...]

Microsoft admits “the code that contains the vulnerability is in all versions of Windows,” but it’s not clear if it’s exploitable beyond server versions of Windows. The Print Spooler service runs by default on Windows, including on client versions of the OS, Domain Controllers, and many Windows Server instances, too.