YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'

Mount a Windows 11 ISO. Open an administrative command window. Navigate to the new drive letter. Enter this command:

    .\setup.exe /product server /auto upgrade /EULA accept /migratedrivers all /ShowOOBE none /Compat IgnoreWarning /Telemetry Disable

I've used this to upgrade 10 to 11 on non approved hardware, going back to at least 2nd gen Intel CPUs. I've used it to upgrade existing Pro, EDU and IOT that didn't want to upgrade.

The install window will say server but it isn't.

    …going back to at least 2nd gen Intel CPU.

> Rich appealed both immediately. The first appeal was denied in 45 minutes. The second in just five.

> The platform claimed its "initial actions" (could be either the first takedown or appeal denial, or both) were not the result of automation.

Didn't know YouTube can improve their review time from 45 minutes to 5 minutes without automation. I bet it's pure magic.

Google censors the world, together with Microsoft.

Well - it is time that the rest of the world censors these two corporation. I don't want them to restrict information.

People will find workarounds by the way. This is now a Streisand effect - as people see that Google and Microsoft try to hide information from them, they will now look at this much more closely than before, with more attention.

(Having said that, my bypass strategy is to not use Windows 11 altogether. I don't depend on it, having used Linux since 21 years now, but my machine to the left is actually using Win10, for various reasons, such as that I can fix problems of elderly relatives still using Windows. But I won't use Win11 ever with its recall-spy software. I also don't care that it can be disabled - any corporation that tries to sniff-invade on me, is evil and must be banned.)

Edit: Ok so the video was restored. That was good, but still, we need an alternative here. Google holds WAY too much power via youtube.

Unfortunately, this brings an obvious question:

If they sensor something like this, how could we trust platforms with the actually important subjects?

Although the reason was absurd, videos were eventually restored.

Bit beside the point but Windows 11 is the first version since Windows 3.1 that I haven't used.

Nuked my Windows 10 install and put Pop OS on it + a MacBook separately.

Those of you who don't use Linux as a daily driver: why?

What do you need in Windows that is not possible in Linux? Its slowness to justify your 40-hour work week?

If anyone at YouTube Trust & Safety is reading this article, I've got a real problem for you to solve.

There are channels that exist solely to pump out AI slop seemingly designed to trick gullible seniors into identifying themselves in the comments. I suspect the scammers will go after these people later in pig-butchering or related scams.

For example, the “Senior Secrets” channel pumps out videos such as “Over 60? Add THIS Powder To Your Coffee To Walk like You’re 40 Again! | Senior Health Tips.” (I won’t link to the video, but you can easily find it with a search.) The video makes bold health claims justified by citing what appear to be scholarly research studies, such as:

> University of California, San Francisco (2023). "Mobility Enhancement Through Nutritional Supplementation in Older Adults." Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, Volume 78, pp. 445-453.

However, none of the cited studies and papers are real.

The deeply concerning thing is that the video’s narrator invites the seniors who are duped by these claims to identify themselves and reveal their age and locations in the comments. From the transcript at 1m44s:

> "Before we begin, tell us in the comments now your age and where you're watching us from. We're reading and replying to every single comment, so drop your comments below."

I’ve already reported this content to YT, but I’ve seen no apparent follow-up.

Disclaimer: I used to work at Google, but not in anything YouTube related. If you’re in YT and want to reach out, my contact info is in my HN profile.

We really need some antitrust enforcement right about now.

When second and fourth largest companies by market cap find it in their financial best interest to collaborate with each other, we have a problem.

In healthy markets, two companies that harvest and sell data as a major source of revenue would want to pull an Auric Goldfinger and disrupt one another's data collection practices to decrease the supply and increase the price of ad-relevant data.

Google used to proudly say "Don't be evil"... But they just forgot to add "let us take that part".

When tech giants start deciding what technical knowledge is too "dangerous" for users to access, we've crossed into a different kind of territory. Installing an OS on your own hardware is now physical harm? That's some creative interpretation of their policies. The irony is that this kind of censorship just validates why people want to bypass these systems in the first place, nobody wants corporations deciding what they can and can't do with their own machines.

I no longer run a Microsoft OS on any of the computers I own.

This type of behavior is the reason.

Linux is good enough for most everything I do, for the rest is MacOS.

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503

Maybe they mixed it up with mental harm from using Windows 11 and that's why they removed Windows 11 content.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube about things that have a “risk of physical harm” and this is what they choose to pick on??

> Then came the twist. YouTube eventually restored both videos. The platform claimed its "initial actions" (could be either the first takedown or appeal denial, or both) were not the result of automation.

The videos are back. It's also possible that a group of people "brigade" reported his posts for some reason. YouTubers attract haters, too.

This is a blessing in disguise.

Now more people will be motivated to migrate AWAY from Windows since they will have no bypass.

Governments (we the people in general) have the right and duty to regulate corporations, non-human entities which exist at our regulatory pleasure. The US and the EU could easily rip Google/MS/Apple to pieces if they wanted to. Hit some other media conglomerates while they're at it. Vote or something.

Windows 11 attempts to remove local only account is the last straw. I have mostly moved away from Windows already but if they fully implement this will never recommend to anyone period. I manage 2600 computers where I work and am down to less than 150 running windows … could see this reaching 0 in just a year or two.

This happened to me when Amazon KDP's fraud prevention AI hallucinated that my Kindle version was plagiarizing my paperback (yes, it's the same book). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40992654

Unfortunately, I'm not sure a human ever really looked at my case, or was strongly disincentivized to go against the AI. I got nothing but bland, contentless denials of my appeals that got vaguer each time. And I was never able to go viral, so I'm banned from KDP for life for complete nonsense.

The whole Windows 11 saga can be titled, "Dr. Bashlove, or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love the *NIX".

Hard to believe this is the same company that made Windows 7. Coulda just ported WSL and security fixes back to that and stopped there. But nooooo.

I forsee a lobby to the government for further restriction on our freedom of speech by google and others as these companies can't compete with open source and decentralized alternatives that are beginning to offer really well made alternatives.

Meanwhile AI products occasionally talk kids into killing themselves and that's okay.

Funny, because all the LLMs are more than happy to spit out the steps. Alphabet, if you want to get ahead, you need to be sure you're consistent. It's literally 4 clicks to get the same info from your sister product.

Everytime I read such news, I'm glad that I ditched Windows for Linux. Since Proton makes almost all games run, I don't have any reason to use Microsoft's rotten software anymore.

I think this is the same story as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503 ?

It's like they want people to bypass Windows 11 altogether. I've finally bit the bullet and gone to Linux recently. Certainly dying by 512 cuts and counting, not for the faint of heart, but I'm surprised at how much of my daily usage I've been able to replicate. I'd say 80% of life works, unlike previous attempts.

Thanks Google and Microsoft, I am going to write a blogpost on how to bypass Microsoft's shits and archive the page as well.

> YouTube eventually restored both videos

Okay, nothing to see here then. Just some sensationalism around a content moderation mistake.

As if people would not talk to each other or post such instructions elsewhere.... What a clumsy attempt to censor that. As if we now would love Microsoft for their shit and crap they produce since centuries. I only got a gaming machine running it here, all my private data will stay on another linux machine

The videos were restored, though...

Once the masses discover that KDE is just as user friendly as Windows these days, ...

... and that it is relatively easy to run (most) Windows apps they love through Bottles (https://usebottles.com/), and/or WinApps (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps)...

... oof

And how you would install a dual boot with some mainstream elf/linux distro?

Is dual boot still a thing with all the effort from microsoft to make that hell or impossible?

Risk of physical harm? Should I perceive that as a… threat?

The video in question does present a risk of death... to Windows.

(Nah, that wording is but a generic legalese sounding way of casting a huge net to get all sorts of fish.)

> Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'

Elaborate please YouTube.

Huh I must have just got in on time as I set up a local account about 12 hours ago following a tutorial.

Risk of Physical Harm of losing profit.

It wasn't wrong, there is no bigger harm one can do to self than using Windows!

"Risk of Physical Harm" is the kind of reason Tony Soprano would say