Personally I think I’d dual boot Windows and Linux. You could use Windows for music and Linux for everything else if you’re worried about Windows privacy. I think it’s pretty easy to set up a dual boot but iirc it’s much better to install Windows first, then Linux
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I did that until yesterday when I updated my motherboard. Windows decided to fry my UEFI bootloader which means that my lovely linux mint partition is inaccessible and I have to dig for info on rebuilding it. Anyone who wants to dual boot best use two different hard rives, if even that helps.
It’s good that there’s general advice in the topic and audio centric thoughts, but I am mainly looking for a machine for being online that I don’t feel precious about throwing around or cycling the battery on. I also need it for remote desktop duties for a couple of Mac minis. I don’t want to waste a mbp on such tasks, sso I am not chasing a musical endgame on this pc, just a smooth browsing experience for home stuff and I might put a few things on, like Max, but no daws.
I might just have to go along with the ms account, but the snooping thing sounds like a step too far and unlikely to make the experience smooth, especially with minimal ram.
It’s a shame they are closing the account loopholes, so it might be that there’s nothing to do but accept that, I can’t be bothered with hacking around on this to get windows to play ball with my hardware, but I don’t mind fine-tuning and reducing annoyances and intrusions over time to make it bearable
I probably made a bad choice, it was a bit last minute, but I wouldn’t have known to even search for half these pitfalls … it’s a useful insight for others in this boat
You can use a MS account to set up Windows and a separate local login for everything else although it does still nag you about it.
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I don’t want to minimize the possibility of corrupted MBR /bootloader issues, but generally speaking I’ve used dual-boot Win/Linux machines on and off for a very long time - some on a single HDD partioned correctly (mostly Ubuntu). I never had any real issues with it, and I’ve found Linux to be a very nice alternative to Windows for a lot of things, mostly productivity.
OP, for everyone trying to encourage you to pick one and stay with it, they may not be wrong but I don’t think your initial thought of a dual boot machine is a bad idea or anything. Now this thread has me reconsidering my current PC, as I have also had some real growing pains with Windows 11.
(I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever, but I updated from 10 to 11 on my relatively-new high end PC a year ago and my clean, ventilated motherboard fried itself a few days later upon waking up from power saving mode. I do blame Windows 11, although it’s circumstantial 
)
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I’ve hit pause on using this whilst i research a bit more, but i have found a November 2024 workaround for attaining a Local Account only which seems to work for 24H2, still watching this and reading up on it before considering my options
anecdotally, if i get this set up, would that typically be the end of this, or would/could it be cat and mouse going forward ? I am only after a good daily driver device which has good utility options, i’m not wanting to waste energy on it (the chromebook experience would be the high water mark in this regard)
The thing i’m competing against is that this device was a total steal and it is a looker, it’s aiming at the Macbook Air for a fraction of the cost, it’s a good value, but obviously not so much if it’s a pain to use long term
EDIT : here is the original video the above one references, the original has the command line instruction in the description
Sounds like I was lucky with last year new installation. Because I bought Pro license many years ago just to minimize such crap…
haven’t read the whole thread, but if you want to use any sort of midi controllers prepare for latency. i.e. get a decent interface that does the audio-processing itself (like RME) so that the cpu might be able to handle midi without latency issues. i spent ages figuring out latency problems and audio dropouts on windows machines.
i myself recently switched to mac after decades of refusing that hipster-shit and have to admit it is just a whole different level when it comes to audio/midi.
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yeah, i’m not overly hung up about its audio credentials, i will use it for programming testing Max patching and Nord Modular editing and some auxiliary purposes that are ‘studio’ related (where no software for Mac exists) - but this is really a Home browser (with benefits) … i’m not going to sling a 16" MBP around the place and burn its battery on browsing - this device setup is all about getting the most out of it, whilst retaining some options i wouldn’t get without trying windows - i’d effectively spend about the same on a comparable chromebook, but that has no added utility
i’m looking for a simple experience, but happy to get more from it, but it’s no audio specific device by a long way, there will be no DAWs
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TL;DR: keep windoze away if you can.
Mac & Linux are much better.
and yeah, VirtualBox (with USB passthrough) rocks – and allows you to run old windoze versions happily. if you’re intended to use old Nord Modular software, this is much less PITA comparing to trying to run it on modern windoze.
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Running Bitwig on Linux might also be good as a deterrent against useless plugin hoarding.
I’ve got myself logged in, it’s a local account, i’m on Win11Home
I’ll be wanting to get Macafee off and any windows bloatware(even if free/trial) . no interest
i guess i need to make my local account an admin
it’s done nothing but the fan has very lightly powered on now i am only connected to wifi : ( !
anyway - lovely screen - time to explore
but any ‘cleansing’ advice welcome - i don’t want any of it to get a foothold or waste space, nor nag going fwd - should i update Win, then clean or will the outcome be the same either way ?
Windows it is then … let’s see if it was worth the gamble …
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How?
The Video here explains the technique - at the point you see an option to set a second keyboard up, you use ctrl/shift/j to go into a terminal and there’s a command that you type to get a local only next step
it worked a treat, it’s running stock software, nothing dodgy, it’s just hidden
i’m enjoying the machine so far but there’s a lot of evidence that ms are pushy, i’ve removed a fair bit which helps
once i get my shortcuts and environment set up i’ll be happy enough - but it could be a pita when i jump from 22h2 i believe to 24h2 which just flashed up - i’m hoping that keeps all my preferences and doesn’t start a spamming cycle again
the only downside is that i guess i can’t look in the windows store
but the route to going in as a local only administrator (i don’t even have a microsoft account) was super easy, glad it came up in a search because it worked out well so far
i’m still finding my way, but it’s easier now i have a foot in the door to look online - i was walking blind at the start of this process
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They must have added that functionality back in. That was my work around for a bit, until CMD was not available at startup.
I didn’t watch the video yet but was the command OOBE\BYPASSNRO?
Not that, it was
this
WinJS.Application.restart(“ms-cxh://LOCALONLY”)
but it’s wiser to follow the steps in the video to ensure it’s done at teh right stage
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I’m glad you got it working satisfactorily. It should work great other than the little things you’re noticing.
I do not have high hopes that 24H will keep things the way you want after the update though. If it does that will be a really pleasant surprise. I’d be interested to know how that goes.
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Sweet find! Looking forward to spending less time with their nonsense! Thanks!
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Maybe already mentioned but the search program Everything is fantastic. I miss it on Macs.
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It’s fair to say that i am actually won over by windows on the whole - i like the fact that there are so many keyboard shortcuts - so i can work quickly doing basic things (a la chromebook experience)
but i see a fair degree of nagging and inconsistencies which i wish were slicker - because as only a recent returnee to windows i can never rule out that it’s user error or an issue when stuff doesn’t seem right
one thing clearly not right is that the recommendation to update to 24h2 was premature - on day one there was an extensive list of updates and extensions all separate including larger windows updates (mentioning 22h2 iirc) and for the most part those all installed eventually after a few reboots
but having trashed mcafee i get the occasional notification to turn on virus protection, but when i click the notification it goes nowhere - there’s also two parts to a notification and it doesn’t make much sense yet (like a banner and body per notification) and in this instance i am befuddled that the intuitive thing i am doing is perhaps wrong even though clicking through is the intuitive thing - so i suspect an issue with that warning - i am therefore unsure what i have wrt virus protection
one thing i did on chromebook that was handy was to create virtual apps - so an app may simply load a specific web-page - it looks and works like an app and it gets you e.g. a fullscreen view of elektronauts without selecting a browser by using the shortcut to its position in task bar - thankfully windows allows this, but i haven’t found the way to search for how to make a url an app and to make that go fullscreen - i have a desktop shortcut and i can load straight from that (presumably add a custom key shortcut) - but i’d like to mimic my chromebook experience and have browser as win+1 and elektronauts(specific page) as win+9 (it’s alt 1 / 9 on chromebook) - i already have chrome remote desktop on win 2 and it works well (even though it shows a menu/tab/bar at teh top, it’s okay as my 16:9 remote screen is still centred on the 16:10 panel in my win laptop)
basically this is the level i am looking to get down to - just making everything appear quickly in its ideal form, i do it all so much i don’t want to be maximizing and clicking extra stuff to do what i would like to do in one familiar keystroke combo
i think it’s doable, i have powertoys added - but i am unsure if i should be running a windows batch script if they still exist or something else in the command line to browse a page in a specific way (fullscreen without prog headers visible)
so if anyone has any suggestions for tools/techniques to fine tune that browsing requirement it should be easy for me to get my familiar google ‘apps’/‘experience’ back … getting there slowly