So when it upgraded to Windows 11, my computer decided that it belonged to the college where I went to nursing school and locked everything down by making the school the administrator in charge of this computer. I guess that’s because I have a Microsoft account through the school. That shut down my VPN, changed my bookmarks, took over my email accounts, and more. It really screwed up my computer. I really hate it when computers and other devices try to be smarter than I am and do things because they think I should.
I think I have fixed it by removing this computer from the college Microsoft account. I will see.
9 Comments
D · July 17, 2023 at 1:17 pm
If you’re worried about computer security and not being tracked, don’t run Windows.
It’s appalling that your computer can randomly give control over to someone else.
While someone else had control, what did it report back to them? Apps installed? Files on the computer? Browsing habits?
I haven’t run Windows since ~1999. Went to Linux and never looked back.
The switch obviously required some adjustments and re-learning things, but I only had to do it once. With Windows you have to do it every 6-12 months when they decide to completely change everything.
anonymous coward · July 17, 2023 at 4:54 pm
>While someone else had control, what did it report back to them?
It is appalling the amount of information Microsoft “makes visible” to “the corporation” – reports of times used, location data, files edited, sites visited. All that is “made visible” to the corporation with out the users knowledge.
Joe Blow · July 17, 2023 at 1:32 pm
Ubuntu was pretty good last time I used it.
Divemedic · July 17, 2023 at 2:14 pm
I have a laptop with Linux installed on it. I hate it. You know why? because I hate having to look up all of the fiddly little text commands that you need to put in for it to work properly. Yeah, Windows sucks, but I know how to use it. I am just far too busy to sit down and learn how to fiddle with something else that won’t work unless you mess with it.
Jim_R · July 17, 2023 at 2:19 pm
The streaming computer at church also upgraded itself to Win11. I was able to force it to revert back to Win10, and since then it just seems to suggest, rather than being quite so helpful…
I think that was “go back” under settings/system/recovery.
Cederq · July 17, 2023 at 6:32 pm
I attended Portland State while pursuing my Bachelors and Masters in Nursing and Behavioral Science some of the curriculum and tests were submitted by computer. You could buy one from the book store with the loaded with the university proprietary software or use your own and the IT department would load it for you… I read the TOS and the release and it basically spelled out once the software was loaded the computer became subject to the college. Meaning they could download and upload any program and updates as they saw fit. At the time I had a top of the line HP laptop with every bell and whistle on it with all my personal software and documents and files. I said hell no. I went and bought a mid level laptop with bare bone browser with XP and eventually Win 7 as well another hard drive that was never hooked up except to load XP on it and then taken out and placed in a secure place. I allowed that laptop to be loaded with the Uni software and once finished with my schooling took out that HD and destroyed it and swapped in the other HD and gave it to my niece so she could use it. I never used it for emails except to my instructors and college. No personal data on it. Your problem is why I did that.
Slow Joe Crow · July 17, 2023 at 7:22 pm
It sounds like your computer had been joined to the school’s Azure AD and switching to 11 inflicted Windows Autopilot. We’re currently dealing with fallout from Autopilot activating Bitlocker when we moved a client to Azure AD.
Always make sure you have a local user with no Microsoft account and administrator rights as a fallback.
anonymous coward · July 18, 2023 at 5:19 am
Great advice SloCro. Once the Domain Join happens, it’s game over for privacy.
Steve · July 18, 2023 at 5:14 am
The other problem is Microsoft will “helpfully” upload your files to the Microsoft cloud, “to free up disk space”. The problem occurs when Microsoft corrupts your data in the cloud, and your files no longer exist on your disk. This happened about a year ago, when Microsoft pushed one of its’ Tuesday patches.
Hope you have good backups.
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