It's time for a new out of body^W box experience. Today's tech support patient is a PC transfer to a new-in-box Windows 11 PC.
Power-user dicks when asked how to do a simple task: "RTFM!"
TFM:
OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!
(buried in a corner of the leaflet, but still...)
8D
I'm simply tickled that the instruction leaflet implies they offer FreeDOS and a Linux distro as home PC choices, in addition to all three choices having something approaching user-accessible manuals.
This leaflet instructions tell the owner how to do the single most important thing with a new computer: How to turn it off! Most excuses for PC manuals these days don't.
Okay, I'm impressed with the level of care HP put into its instructions, paltry as they are. It came with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo, and this is what they did for the dongle.
Once in the Out Of Box Experience (OOBE), Windows 11 ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT let you proceed without a working Internet connection.
There's no "skip" option, only a list of network interfaces and SSIDs that you ABSOLUTELY MUST choose, & you CAN'T choose a "No Internet" ethernet interface.
And this was BEFORE the license agreement boxes. Those came after the mystery hard-need of an Internet connection (and unannounced reboot).
Microsoft doesn't even pretend to negotiate anymore. There are no checkboxes, and no buttons to express anything other than meek, unquestioning agreement, no matter how unreasonably Faustian the terms.
These are terms I would never, ever agree to if this were my computer, but my customer doesn't even try to understand or question them, so onward.
(Also, if you try going through OOBE with disabled network devices, it just shows a list of no interfaces and instructions to go to aka.ms/networksetup on another PC.)
And now, the showstopper for the day:
No Microsoft account == No Windows 11 for you!
And no, you can't hit [Shift]+[F10] and get in through the control panel. User account creations are managed by the Settings app, and it isn't installed in the OOBE's defaultuser0 account.
I helped my customer create a Microsoft Account.
In an insultingly ageist move, Microsoft called the year we were typing an invalid date, from the first digit to the last.
In addition to a Microsoft Account, Windows 11 requires an insecurity feature. If you skip Windows Hello face recognition, you MUST create a Windows Hello PIN. No skip.
It gets better. There's a cancel button on the PIN setup page. But if you click it, you just go to a page where Microsoft says as firmly as I just did that you must create a PIN (and has the audacity to call it secure and fun), before forcing you back to the PIN setup page.
"Something went wrong
"We weren't able to set up your PIN. You can try again, or skip this step and set up a PIN later."
[Skip for now] [[Retry]]
Skipping worked. So PIN setup is absolutely required, no way out of it at all, nope nope nope, except if there's an error, then well never mind, forget we said anything about it.
After the usual privacy violation features toggles, Windows 11 is now asking how the PC will be used. Choices: entertainment, gaming, school, creativity, business, and family.
Nice thought, but why? What happens if I answer wrong? How angry will the boss get if I choose "gaming" on a new office PC? How boring and useless will it be if I choose "business" on a home PC?
I feel like none of you would believe me if I didn't show you.
The Windows 11 OOBE hocks Microsoft 365 trialware to a captive audience. It's "free," but you have to cough up a credit card and $100+tax/year if you fall for it.
Now, since this is an OEM install, Windows wants me to register with the OEM. It calls the step optional, but the only button is "Next," and the Microsoft Account email address is pre-filled.
The dark patterns just never end. "Next" can still be selected if all the boxes are erased.
Current status: "We're getting you to the next version of Windows"
There's a three-phase download and installation going, and it's progressing far too slowly for a just-released operating system.
The download phase was over before I knew it, but the installation phase is dragging like a typical Windows 10 update (my fault for thinking it would do otherwise), and it cautions that it could take 30 minutes or more.
It finished when I looked away, and I'm now staring at, I presume, a lock screen. ... Did you know the current time is 12:59?
I mean, it's telling the right time for the UTC time zone, but I'm in the US Mountain time zone, and both Microsoft and the OEM are in the US Pacific time zone.
The first login prompt to Windows 11 after finishing setup is through a "Microsoft Account" window that is looking and acting exactly like the website. It is *NOT* looking or acting like the native login screen of *ANY* OS I have ever used or seen used.
After entering the correct password, it's gone back to recommending I set up Windows Hello. If I hit "Skip for now," it demands I create a PIN, again with no alternative whatsoever.
Now I'm at a screen hocking OneDrive. The overall thing doesn't seem like a dark pattern, given its legit usefulness potential, but its choices sure do. The default is a "Next" button, but the links are "Privacy" and the confusingly worded "Only save files to this PC."
And at last, I'm at the Windows 11 desktop. Microsoft probably loaded crapware apps on it, but the OEM loaded some McAfee crapware.
Decrapifying is a different adventure. This adventure, the most surreal computer out of box experience I have yet endured, is over.
Oops! An addendum! What about the documentation the instruction leaflet told me about?
Neither Tips nor Get Help were featured in the Start menu. Tips is there, but it's on the second page of apps, and there's a "Get Started" menu choice just below the apps.
Microsoft, just what--
"Get Started" -> "This app can't open - A problem with Windows is preventing Get Started from opening. Refreshing your PC might fix it. [Refresh]" - [Copy to clipboard] [Close]
The most refreshing thing so far, no pun intended: The leaflet's instructions for the user guide worked! It opened Edge, asked me in a Web page to pick the right-language user guide, and opened a 65-page PDF. Both the Web page and the PDF are file URLs: they were already there, not downloaded!
Glad to know ahead of time it just gets so much worse.
Oh, joy! Yet another PC where pressing the power button doesn't actually cut the power or shut down the system cleanly. No, it just puts it in still-powered sleep mode instead.
Well, sorry about the start-up clean-up you had to do on a battery-free desktop, Windows. Maybe ACTUALLY TURN OFF when you blank the screen after a power button press instead, so I don't crash you when I unplug afterward.