Ridiculous installation requirement

Slartybart · 02 Jan 2015

Saltgrass said:

Can I assume you have all seen the notice of the Insider Program Terms of Use changing in January? I have tried to check it a couple of times and have not seen the changes to which they refer.

davehc said:

Saltgrass said:

Can I assume you have all seen the notice of the Insider Program Terms of Use changing in January? I have tried to check it a couple of times and have not seen the changes to which they refer.

Yes, Saltgrass. Darned nuisance. every time I go on the forum it sticks in my face, even after acknowledging it. There doesn't seem to be any way to cancel it as read.

Saltgrass said:

davehc said:

Yes, Saltgrass. Darned nuisance. every time I go on the forum it sticks in my face, even after acknowledging it. There doesn't seem to be any way to cancel it as read.

I suppose since the notice shows a date of Dec. 22, that would align with the announcement for Jan. 21, since I believe 30 days notice are necessary. But I have not seen the actual changes, so this notice would not really fulfill the 30 day notice requirement.

ThrashZone, the notice is on the Microsoft Community, Technical Preview forum.

Thanks Clark, I had not checked the TP forum for a while. I read the terms that the link provided (dated September), but changes are often minor and difficult to identify. It is rare, in my experience, that the individual terms are spelled out - you just have to be notified that the terms are changing and read the agreement. Since I don't think I have a copy of what was there when I joined, I can't easily compare the two (assuming there are two in existence). I don't know if 30 days advance is accurate, but the notice states that if you continue to use the program, you agree to the existing terms. Following your lead though, a date of 21 Jan is about 7 days prior to the next scheduled Preview Release.

Dave, I dismissed the announcement [X] and clicked on the blue "Learn more" bar at the top of IE, the refreshed the page - no announcement, then I logged off, closed the page, logged back on and opened the page - no announcement. I haven't tried closing my browser (deletes history, including cookies) to see if the announcement reappears, but I'll try that in a bit. So basically I cannot reproduce what you're seeing. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Bill
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davehc · 02 Jan 2015

Tks. I couldn't see anything that said "Learn more", but the announcement seems to have gone away now, except for a small insertion saying there are 2 announcements.

Attachment 9988

I followed this up. In IE, once signed in, the note no longer appears. In Chrome, which I use more often, signed in or out, the note remains.
I cleared the cookies to see if it was linked, but, same result. Anyway, no bother now. I see in the second announcement that the site will be undergoing maintenance shortly, (possibly before the January release?). This may resolve the issue

Slartybart · 03 Jan 2015

davehc said:

Tks. I couldn't see anything that said "Learn more", but the announcement seems to have gone away now, except for a small insertion saying there are 2 announcements.

I followed this up. In IE, once signed in, the note no longer appears. In Chrome, which I use more often, signed in or out, the note remains.
I cleared the cookies to see if it was linked, but, same result. Anyway, no bother now. I see in the second announcement that the site will be undergoing maintenance shortly, (possibly before the January release?). This may resolve the issue

Tahakns Dave,

As promised ... closing IE and visiting the Tech Forum TP again causes the announcement to re-appear. It must be cookie driven as my configuration deletes browsing history.

Bill
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Slartybart · 04 Jan 2015

Wolfgang,

This issue was bugging me and I think I found out what you experienced. It's actually a very good point and has nothing to do with 2-step security.

Jimbo nailed it, disconnect from the Internet during an installation!
- I never saw the issue because I am not always connected to the Internet.

I was looking at a tutorial to help another member and had to traverse a few to find what the other member needed.

See: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...n-install.html
Step 17 instructs you on what type of account you want to use, then Steps 18 and 19 define the difference.

Use step 18, use a MS account, and you are prompted with all of the things you saw during your installation.
Use step 19, use a local account, and things are 'normal' - no security questions, no code sent to verify.

I thnk the confusion stems from this screen: https://www.tenforums.com/attachments...windows_10-jpg

It appears to call for creating a MS account, lower down on the screen, it says "Don't have an account ... create new account"
When you click on that text link, only then are you given the option to "Sign in without a MS account"
- it isn't clear unless you're following the tutorial that you can do this as everything on the screens push you towards a MS account.

When you click on the Sign in without a MS account text link, you can create a local account.

Will MS put the choice of Local vs. MS account up front or clarify the options? Only if someone points out the confusion as you have done.

Great find, and thanks fro making us all think a little harder.

This should probably be a Feedback issue - when you submit it, please provide some text that I can search on so that I can "Me too" it.

Bill
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whs · 04 Jan 2015

Thanks Bill. That explanation is very helpful. Reason I always sign into my MS account is that I then get all my stuff back - desktop, settings, etc. I am a lazy guy.

I really have no problem with their procedures because I have enough gear in this room. I was just thinking about the poor person who has only 1 device - his PC. And I know many of those e.g. many seniors in my computer club. They may even have a cell phone (the flip kind) and if it is smart, they don't know how to use it with the web.

Slartybart · 04 Jan 2015

You're welcome Wolfgang. I posted because it bugged me and it was evident that even experienced users were confused when you described the events.

I think it's important enough to warrant MS feedback, I will submit one if you don't care to do so.

I don't think you're a lazy guy

davehc · 05 Jan 2015

I do the same as WHS. On afterthought, when giving feedback, it probably wouldn't be such a bad idea to ensure that your are, indeed, signed in "Live"?
Quite a few items are not available with a local account and could give erroneous reports.

fwiw. There are already several feedback items on the sign in option, but for those who feel strongly, the more there are, perhaps the more notice would be taken of it.

Kari · 05 Jan 2015

Slartybart said:

Wolfgang,

This issue was bugging me and I think I found out what you experienced. It's actually a very good point and has nothing to do with 2-step security.

Let's make this very clear: The "issue" Wolfgang had is basically not an issue, it's an added security measure when using an MS Account to sign in to Windows 8 or later. On the contrary to what you said it has everything to do with MS Account's added security features.

Of course this added security does not apply when using a local account which is in no way connected to an email address, but many of us want to / need to use an MS Account for sign in. The possibility to not use it and use local account instead has been there since Windows 8 and is clearly told in every support article at various Microsoft sites regarding installation and in our installation tutorials at Eight Forums and here.

Using a local account to avoid security code being asked is not a solution for this non-issue. When the user later on wants to / needs to create another user account using MS Account sign in, or alternatively converts his / her current local account to an MS Account, the security measures are still there and the code will be asked.

I have never had a reason not to have two-step verification enabled so I decided to test all of this now with a new MS Account with two-step verification disabled. For this I created a dummy outlook.com email address.

First thing I observed was that it is impossible to create an MS Account for instance an outlook.com email without giving a secondary email address or a phone number. Clicking next when these fields were empty caused an error, so finally I had to give a secondary email:

Ridiculous installation requirement-2015-01-05_08h46_26.png

I must repeat that this was all new to me as I have always liked the added security features, always willingly set up two-step verification, never tried to create an account without security contact information, never tried to remove the security contact information. Trying to remove the secondary email later after the account was created also created an error:

Ridiculous installation requirement-2015-01-05_08h51_24.png

OK, I then installed Windows 10 Build 9879 on a vm, signed in using this new dummy MS Account. As Wolfgang had experienced, it asked the security code which would be sent to this secondary email address I had to give when creating the account:

Ridiculous installation requirement-2015-01-05_09h12_34.png

Notice that had I chosen to use a phone number instead of secondary email when creating the account I had now had an option to receive the code per text message. Also important to notice is that this new MS Account of mine had two-step verification off. This was news to me, as mentioned I have always set up two-step verification as soon as possible when creating a new account so for me the system asking for a code has always been a natural thing.

Last test, creating a new user account in existing Windows 10 system using this dummy MS Account. Logging in first time, the code was asked.

Conclusion: There's no way to avoid the security code being asked when setting up an MS Account as Windows sign in account. Naturally, a local account has no added security and the security code will not be asked. If you choose to use an MS Account for sign in to Windows, the code will be asked whether you have two-step verification turned on or off. My recommendation is to edit your MS Account security settings by adding a mobile phone number before installing Windows 8 or later using your MS Account for sign in. This allows you to receive the code per text message instead of an email, making the installation easy also when you only have one computer and cannot receive the code per email.

Kari

Slartybart · 05 Jan 2015

Kari said:

Slartybart said:

Wolfgang,

This issue was bugging me and I think I found out what you experienced. It's actually a very good point and has nothing to do with 2-step security.

Let's make this very clear: The "issue" Wolfgang had is basically not an issue, it's an added security measure when using an MS Account to sign in to Windows 8 or later. On the contrary to what you said it has everything to do with MS Account's added security features.
.....
Conclusion: There's no way to avoid the security code being asked when setting up an MS Account as Windows sign in account. Naturally, a local account has no added security and the security code will not be asked. If you choose to use an MS Account for sign in to Windows, the code will be asked whether you have two-step verification turned on or off. My recommendation is to edit your MS Account security settings by adding a mobile phone number before installing Windows 8 or later using your MS Account for sign in. This allows you to receive the code per text message instead of an email, making the installation easy also when you only have one computer and cannot receive the code per email.

Kari

Ah, good stuff Kari. As always thank you for taking the time to research and test to those depths.

I think your conclusion supports my statement that the process has nothing to do with 2-step verification at install time.

Please consider the following

the install process, as it stands, initially prompts you to create a MS account
there are ways that are documented to create a local account but it is not intuitive during the installation process
2 step verification requires user action to enable it
the feature has not enabled at this point - the account is being newly created
installing Windows does not require a MS account
a MS account can be created with any eMail address (Yahoo, Gmail, your own domain)
the code is sent to an alternate eMaill account which you cannot access if you only have one device (until the install is complete), or
The code sent to your phone is in the form of a text msg, but not all cell phones support. Not everyone has a cell phone.

The current process to install Windows has an extra security step if you choose to use a MS Account as your primary login. The install process weighs heavily on creating a MS account - the average user won't have the experience to differentiate what they need to do. They'll follow what's right in front of them and miss the ambiguous alternative offered to create a local account. Too many people don't read the message on the screen that tells them exactly what the problem is - this is not that case ... the dialog window obfuscates the alternate Local account option.

The subject of this thread is ridiculous installation requirement, for the purpose of this discussion my emphasis is on installing Windows. I think MS would be better served if the extra step was after Windows is installed and on your first login to the MS account much like the Last test scenario (above Conclusion) in your post.

I'll take it one step further and suggest that a local account should take precedence at install time and prompt you for a MS account login after the install is completed, the machine is up and running and you can access the Internet in order to complete any steps MS deems necessary.

I think the issue is many-fold. Sure it's been around since Win8 and is documented many places, that doesn't mean it's a non-issue.

I enjoy reading your posts Kari and appreciate the effort you put in to making them accurate.
I think we're just looking at this from different perspectives. To put it simply, I don't accept the premise of requiring a MS account login to install Windows on a desktop/laptop machine. I will stipulate that it needs to be an option, just not the primary option.

I'm sure we could debate this further, but that won't change anything of great consequence. The only thing I would like to clear up is your two seemingly contradictory statements.
1.

Let's make this very clear: On the contrary to what you said it has everything to do with Two-Step verification.

2.

IF you choose to use an MS Account for sign in to Windows, the code will be asked whether you have two-step verification turned on or off.

Kari · 05 Jan 2015

Slartybart said:

I'm sure we could debate this further, but that won't change anything of great consequence. The only thing I would like to clear up is your two seemingly contradictory statements.
1.

Let's make this very clear: On the contrary to what you said it has everything to do with Two-Step verification.

What I meant with this is that this is a security feature and using a "real" MS Account (one from Microsoft, be it @live.com, @msn.com, @hotmail.com, @outlook.com) and whether or not two/step verification is enabled, the security code will always be asked when signing in first time to Windows using an MS Account, or when creating a new user account using one of Microsft#s email addresses.

Slartybart said:

2.

IF you choose to use an MS Account for sign in to Windows, the code will be asked whether you have two-step verification turned on or off.

Again, I am talking about MS Accounts with a Microsoft email address, I admit I should have been more clear with this.

Kari