Basically, install Windows as you normally would, but when asked for Time and Currency format, select English (World) instead of your country.

Then let the installer do its thing. Eventually, you will see a window with an ice cream cone on the floor with the words “Something went wrong” and the error message “OOBEREGION.” This cryptic message means that the “out of box experience” (OOBE) didn’t launch because it didn’t know which region to launch.

Click Skip, though, and Windows will install just fine. You won’t be prompted to buy Microsoft 365, you won’t be prompted to pay for a OneDrive subscription, and your Start menu won’t be cluttered with apps.

  • deweydecibel
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    9 months ago

    they are moving in a positive direction, but the ads, bloat, spyware, needs to go

    They’re going nowhere. It’s making money, Microsoft is using that income to offset development cost instead of just selling the OS at a flat reasonable rate. It’s part of the Windows business model now.

    Windows is entrenched, they own most of the business world, they will never face serious kickback for their design decisions. Not at this point. Not until Gen Z gets old enough and numerous enough to start pushing workplaces to adopt Apple, and that’s an even worse direction.

    This isn’t ever going to change. The only thing they’ll do is give tools to Enterprise editions for businesses to control the install, and only via Azure, at a price point far too high for the average user. Anything less than Enterprise will be locked down and monetized to hell and back.

    Effectively, if you’re not a business, you will not have true control over Windows. Users no longer get to be admins. You have to pay for that privilege.

    • rastilin
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      69 months ago

      They’re not offsetting anything, they still charge money for the boxed copy sold in stores. This is pure profit for them.

    • @whynotzoidberg
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      29 months ago

      Not until Gen Z gets old enough and numerous enough to start pushing workplaces to adopt Apple, and that’s an even worse direction.

      Elder millennial here. This was said of us, too. I remember main framers sometimes noting this direction and poking fun.

      Yet here I am and the world keeps chugging along in similar ways.

    • @[email protected]
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      29 months ago

      Not until Gen Z gets old enough and numerous enough to start pushing workplaces to adopt Apple, and that’s an even worse direction.

      I am a bit weirded out by such an association. Around me, I do see a few people with Apple tech, but they’re a minority. How would people that are able to afford these products be numerous enough to matter?

    • @[email protected]
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      -29 months ago

      I don’t know why gen z is being portrayed as tech illiterate everywhere on lemmy. We grew up with technology and half of us are adults already

      • @PawjamaParty
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        59 months ago

        Growing up with technology doesn’t automatically grant you knowledge of it. Kids that grow up with iPads are capable of using iPads, but sit them in front of a computer and they’ll be lost. Being technically literate is more than just being able to install an app from the app store.

        • @[email protected]
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          59 months ago

          Technically true yes but that is not going to be that way for everyone gen z are also people who are capable of learning. I personally am a tech and privacy nerd and know that not everyone of my generation is as interested but I am also sick off people branding gen z as dumb children on here, hell most of us are adults already.

          • @PawjamaParty
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            39 months ago

            Of course everybody can learn, but is anyone teaching them? I’m a millennial, I grew up with computers, but I had to learn a lot of things the hard way because it was just expected that we’d somehow become experts without anyone teaching us. We weren’t told about cybersecurity, or how to troubleshoot issues, I had to learn all those things by myself. And learning to troubleshoot and other more technical things I only learned because I’m actually interested in computers. Many of my peers aren’t, and so don’t know even the most basic things.