Recent content by Mercutio

The trend is definitely entering the space heater range. I roll my eyes every time Intel releases a new desktop CPU. Apparently i9s have been running on unbounded power consumption, even on E-cores where their contribution to overall performance is literally meaningless. High end nVidia is in...

You can ALREADY just create a local account and use any account belonging to the Administrator group to decrypt the PC. You don't have to do anything with Windows Hello at all for that. It's just that future versions of Windows are going to nag you about not being in a Microsoft-approved...

The leaked specs seem to suggest Intel and AMD are both trying to offer things in what nVidia calls midrange, rather than making furnace-grade GPUs that exceed reality and all possible budgets; Battlemage is supposedly going to top out at that 300W sweet spot. I swapped a former student my...

Windows Hello is available on all Windows 10 and 11 computers. It is a form of extensible authentication that can use a PIN or a card/NFC reader or a biometric sensor. If I happen to conduct an e-commerce transaction from MS Edge, it'll try to fill card details it imported from some other...

Microsoft has users create a Microsoft Account with an email address and a password. Microsoft has a separate security system called Windows Hello, which can be tied to a local OR a Microsoft account and can use secondary authentication methods like facial recognition, fingerprint reader or...

It's not so much that it must be connected to the internet forever, but it has to be connected for the Microsoft account to be set up. Current standards also default to encrypting the primary drive with Bitlocker and creation of a PIN that is emphatically not the password associated with the...

They're going to start bitching for local accounts that already exist. How long until people with non-federated on premises domain accounts get the same treatment?

Apparently, Windows 11's next big update is going to start pressuring users on local accounts to switch to Microsoft accounts. This is a whole new level of aggravation, and something that's not going to get better in Windows 12.

Apparently not until 2025.

It looks like vanilla 4070s are getting down to reasonable prices. I know that's because of dwindling supply, but I still see it as good news. The A750 and A770 are likewise seeing meaningful discounts; they're about $50 cheaper. Supposedly Battlemage will hit 2nd half of 2024 and nVidia is...

Edge and Media Player aren't the one I hate, but yes, I've seen OneDrive come back in spite of Group Policies and removing the binaries and registry entries for it. Microsoft is VERY thorough in re-adding it in spite of any precaution to keep it off computers. I manually used the ADK to build...

Tiny 11 Builder has been updated to support all Windows 11 releases. It's basically a long Powershell script that pulls out a list of bullshit Windows Store applications, but it also gives your Windows 11 install an Edge, Media Player and OneDrive-ectomy. The script is very easy to read and...

It's a FUN example; it was a form of identity that worked perfectly anywhere someone might reasonably encounter a European ID card in the US. I think it actually got less scrutiny than oddball US State IDs, where someone might actually look for all the details on the card. When my friend...

My best friend's older sister is a naturalized citizen of Germany, and so my friend was given on an older National ID card to my friend to use for 18 - not-quite 21 shenanigans. Hilariously, that meant we could go to The Aviary in Chicago but got the cops called for trying to use it to walk in...

I had to service three Windows XP systems earlier in the week. They talk to commercial embroidery systems that don't have software that operates anything newer and won't virtualize worth a shit because of a USB security dongle, so they've just had their second whole system transfer. As...