News Microsoft Hides Windows 10's Offline Account Option

[Admin]

Microsoft is pushing Windows 10 users to create a Microsoft Account during the setup process harder than ever.

Microsoft Hides Windows 10's Offline Account Option : Read more

 

[kerberos_20]

u know u can always unplug network cable when installing if ya want offline account

 

[Giroro]

FYI logging into the window store 1 time converts your entire local windows account to an online account.

Microsoft made it seem like I had to log into the Windows store to download a free coded to get HEVC back... You don't actually need to login to get free software from the windows store. You also don't need to pay $1 to get back a feature they removed.

Just use this one

Honestly, I'm a little suspicious they removed a common modern codec and started charging for it in order to funnel more people down the path of being tricked into setting up a Microsoft account.

 

[drtweak]

FYI logging into the window store 1 time converts your entire local windows account to an online account.

Microsoft made it seem like I had to log into the Windows store to download a free coded to get HEVC back... You don't actually need to login to get free software from the windows store. You also don't need to pay $1 to get back a feature they removed.

Just use this one

Honestly, I'm a little suspicious they removed a common modern codec and started charging for it in order to funnel more people down the path of being tricked into setting up a Microsoft account.

Actually no it doesn't. You can still log into the store and not convert it to a MS account login. I know because that is how my PC is setup on a clean install of 1903 as well.

Also pretty sure you don't have to unplug your network card. you just have to know where to click. But yes MS is stupid for making a local account harder.

Also 4) IT People who know what Domain is and that clicking it means making local account even if you don't join a domain. lol

 

[kerberos_20]

FYI logging into the window store 1 time converts your entire local windows account to an online account.

Microsoft made it seem like I had to log into the Windows store to download a free coded to get HEVC back... You don't actually need to login to get free software from the windows store. You also don't need to pay $1 to get back a feature they removed.

Just use this one

Honestly, I'm a little suspicious they removed a common modern codec and started charging for it in order to funnel more people down the path of being tricked into setting up a Microsoft account.

umm. i use VLC player or youtube, in both cases hevc works fine

 

[Giroro]

Actually no it doesn't. You can still log into the store and not convert it to a MS account login. I know because that is how my PC is setup on a clean install of 1903 as well.

That was not my experience which was a few weeks ago. After logging into the Microsoft store (the app not the website) it started pulling data over from the microsoft account I had made for my Surface Pro, changed my login screen etc. After logging out from the store I had to go back into control panel and convert my entire user account back to local.

 

[bit_user]

Honestly, I'm a little suspicious they removed a common modern codec and started charging for it in order to funnel more people down the path of being tricked into setting up a Microsoft account.

They probably removed it because it's not free. HEVC is covered by patents, and the MPEG-LA sets licensing fees that (AFAIK) must be paid on a per-player basis. Either these terms changed, or MS just decided not enough people use the codec for it to eat the cost of buying a license for all users.

umm. i use VLC player or youtube, in both cases hevc works fine

That's because VLC bundles its own codecs.

However, if you want to use Windows Media Player or load HEVC files in various media authoring tools, you need the Windows (DirectShow?) HEVC codec.

 

[kerberos_20]

They probably removed it because it's not free. HEVC is covered by patents, and the MPEG-LA sets licensing fees that (AFAIK) must be paid on a per-player basis. Either these terms changed, or MS just decided not enough people use the codec for it to eat the cost of buying a license for all users.


That's because VLC bundles its own codecs.

However, if you want to use Windows Media Player or load HEVC files in various media authoring tools, you need the Windows (DirectShow?) HEVC codec.

codec packs usualy have hevc bundled...hevc is open source anyway
https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

 

[bit_user]

codec packs usualy have hevc bundled...hevc is open source anyway
https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

Open source does not mean it's free-to-use!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Patent_license_terms

 

[kerberos_20]

Open source does not mean it's free-to-use!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Patent_license_terms

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/h...urer/9n4wgh0z6vhq?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
here its free to use from microsoft

as for royalties...i have hardware decoder, in nvidia gpu..so teh royalty should be already paid

 

[USAFRet]

FYI logging into the window store 1 time converts your entire local windows account to an online account.

No it does not.
My local Standard user and local Admin user remain fully local.
The rarely used MS account remains MS.

 

[Giroro]

No it does not.
My local Standard user and local Admin user remain fully local.
The rarely used MS account remains MS.

That's what happened for me. On a clean install of 1903 a few weekends ago when I was downloaing junk like codecs and NVidia's control panel.
My local account converted to my MS account, and I had to change it back.
It was a pretty obvious change the local usernames I use are nowhere close to the one on my MS account and my password was converted to the pin # I use to login to windows account. It even set me to automatically sign into skype when I logged in - which is not an app I would ever use on purpose.
I don't know why it happened, but it happened.
Microsoft rolls out updates in waves and tweaks stuff behind the scenes durring security updates all the time - probably to compensate for their lack of OS bug testing and how all their good engineers got moved from "legacy platforms" like windows to Azure. If you aren't seeing that behavior maybe it hasn't rolled out to your hardware configuration, or possibly I was still on an older version and they behavior has been removed.

When was the last time you logged into the Microsoft store?

 

[USAFRet]

When was the last time you logged into the Microsoft store?

1 or 2 months ago(?)
And only with the dedicated MS account.

 

[bit_user]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/h...urer/9n4wgh0z6vhq?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
here its free to use from microsoft

Free to you, but not necessarily free to MS.

If you check the licensing terms I linked, MPEG-LA charges:
▪ Free: First 100k units/ year
▪ US$0.20: 100k+ units/year
▪ US$0.10: 5M+ units/year

So, it's small enough that MS could eat the cost, but they have a clear incentive to limit the number of instances to just the users who are actually using it.

 

[Giroro]

Free to you, but not necessarily free to MS.

If you check the licensing terms I linked, MPEG-LA charges:
▪ Free: First 100k units/ year
▪ US$0.20: 100k+ units/year
▪ US$0.10: 5M+ units/year

So, it's small enough that MS could eat the cost, but they have a clear incentive to limit the number of instances to just the users who are actually using it.

It was previously included and they removed though, so in my mind I already paid for it when I bought windows.
People aren't really supposed to get the free version though. Microsoft wants you to use the link in the movies app that charges $1 for the identical codec. Charging $1 for a 0.10 digital license is a pretty healthy markup still.

 

[bit_user]

It was previously included and they removed though, so in my mind I already paid for it when I bought windows.

The wikipedia table mentions 2017-20 in a couple places. So, I wonder if the terms changed sometime in 2017.