Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

"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]]

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.

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.

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.

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.

I left out TAS due to space, but it's basically underappreciated and "Discount TOS" at the same time.

Enterprise: Why don't we make a federation?

TOS: The Federation is cowboys and aliens.

TNG: The Federation as it sees itself.

DS9: The Federation as others see it.

Voyager: We're hitchhiking back to the Federation.

Movies: The Federation made some oopsies.

LD: The Federation's brochures exaggerated.

Picard: Well, things can't get any worse for the Federation...

Discovery: And then things got worse for the Federation.

Trivia about current #Unix time: While 32-bit time will roll over in January of 2038, just 16 years from now, 64-bit time will not roll over for another 292 billion years. By then, the CMB will have cooled to undetectable, & the cosmic event horizon will be inside our galaxy.

Also by the time of First Edition, #Unix was running on a PDP-11, not the PDP-7 it had been originally designed and built on. The team would use the pain of porting an entire OS using only Assembly language to invent the slightly more portable C language the following year.