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> The one idea I still have left is to enable the hidden administrator account in Windows 11, which gives you password-free access to what is basically Windows’ root account.

Pardon my pedantry, but technically Windows' equivalent of the root account is `NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM`, although it's a little different in that it isn't an account one can use to Logon. You're right that `Administrator` is the highest privilege level interactive user account :) https://security.stackexchange.com/a/66747

This garbage and more is the reason I did my Framework 12's installation of Windows 11 (dual booting with FreeBSD 15) using this `unattend.xml` generator to disable internet requirement, disable mandatory Microsoft Account, disable intrusive spyware, disable disable disable: https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/

Sucks to have such an adversarial relationship with my own computer though. One shouldn't have to Know All The Tricks to avoid this shit.

2 comments

The problem with Linux, they say, is that you have to fiddle with it endlessly to get it working; Windows, by contrast, Just Works Right Out of the Box.

Oh, but you don't actually want to use Windows as it comes out of the box, so they tell us you have to use a custom build, replace utilman.exe with cmd.exe, create an unattend.xml, don't connect it to the internet during the install procedure, run these commands, make these registry changes, apply these group policies, and install these aftermarket utilities and then you can FINALLY get a decent Windows experience.

Just don't use Windows Update, or it will all be reset again.

I'm glad I left that world behind.

I'm not telling you to use Windows. I'm telling you I use Windows lol

It sucks a lot actually, and everything that's good about it is good despite what Microsoft do to it and not because of them. I love my Lunix too, but sometimes I just wanna click on some robot heads in MvM or make the cars go fast that both don't work so well on my OS of choice: https://old.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/1nkpkoo/burnout_...

Burnout Paradise worked fine out the box on my Steam Deck, and my Linux Chimera "console".

The hardest part was dealing with the shitty launchers.

> FreeBSD

Great to hear that about Proton though!

Sorry I misunderstood, though to be fair... ;)

> I'm telling you I use Windows lol

> I love my Lunix too, but sometimes I just wanna click on some robot heads in MvM or make the cars go fast

Makes it sound like your OS of choice is Windows

Only for gaming and for piracy. I also need it for BD ripping since DVDfab Passkey operates as a Windows driver.

After that I’d still have to clear hundreds of gigabytes of disk space it hordes under \Windows.

TBH I use both windows and Linux since ages and it's Linux that's painless and always works, but my main personal OS is still Windows (10) because I can't get all I need running well (or at all) on Linux.

And yes, the windows updates resettling all these little necessary settings is little infuriating.

While you should never blindly trust a stranger that suggests you open and admin power shell and enter

  PS C:\Windows\system32> irm "https://christitus.com/win" | iex

it's worth a shot - that downloads the latest stable Chris Titus WinUtil as a tabbed text GUI with easy click options and various recommended setting levels to deal with all of that.

See: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

https://christitus.com/windows-tool/

Chris Titus on his own (and contributors) Util: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuaNw8Tpn7Q

Some third party run through and rave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i43BZyJ4azc

It's all open source powershell scripts from windows insiders that gets heavy eyeballs - fast track installs of common software, easy set update tweaks (eg: only the serious security updates), disable telemetry and AI bloat, etc.

Thanks a million, bookmarked.

> Windows, by contrast, Just Works Right Out of the Box.

Yes, it is after you install it on your box that it stops working. /s

> Windows 11 (dual booting with FreeBSD 15

Not sure if you are aware of this but dual booting can be broken with new Windows update if you're not using different disks.

The BitLocker thing? I turned off the TPM and “““Secure””” Boot so it shouldn't do that.

Windows still likes to occasionally clobber your EFI entries and wipe out grub if it sees it.

You can use the windows boot loader to boot other operating systems. I guess there's no guarantee an update won't remove it from the menu, though. A lot of systems have a boot menu built into UEFI these days, too, which will show you all the bootable partitions on the system.

I'm using rEFInd (because it's pretty!) and have the UEFI executable priority set, so as long as Windows doesn't reformat my ESP I should be fine. Or if it does I at least know how to fix it. Within FreeBSD it's a simple `mount -t msdosfs`, and shoutout to this utility for the Windows side of things: https://github.com/franzageek/WinEFIMounter

The one annoyance was that the Windows installer makes a puny 100MiB ESP by default, which would actually be enough for everything I have on there at the moment, but it felt small so I bumped it up to 1G before installing the second OS.

I know the NT bootloaders would chainload Linux under BIOS, but have never seen a successful technique using UEFI.

Is there an easy-to-understand tutorial?

For dual boot I have been relying on Grub to boot Windows which it still does fine with UEFI.