Microsoft tweaks Windows Out of Box Experience for enterprises to adjust control freakery From next month, Windows administrators will be able to inflict Microsoft's quality updates on users via the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) by default. Users without managed devices have long faced an interminable wait during the first setup of Windows while updates are downloaded and installed. Microsoft's "much awaited …
Clearly labeled configuration options in a unified, consistent interface, with well thought out settings hierarchies that don't get shuffled every six months or so, actually doing what they're labeled for, with documentation that manages to avoid lying to the system administrator ... all of these are anathema to Microsoft. Why build something that *works* when you can build something that is "beautifully complicated" and provides differentiation from your predecessors' work (entirely for internal organizational political reasons having absofuckinglutely nothing to do with functionality) while guaranteeing "Jorb Securimty"?
I miss the days when I just used Ghost and SID with an external drive to build new machines while keeping them isolated from the network/internet. Plug in the drive, insert the floppy and start the PC; repeat for the other 5-6 on the bench and then go grab a coffee. Come back and all now ready to test and deploy
Having (briefly, before I retired) had the Win11 "out of box experience" on my work PC, I can't recommend it to anyone. They really, REALLY want you to do the "Hello" face regognition or 2FA thing on your phone, and there appears to be no way around that (there is, but MS doesn't make it easy or obvious). I use a Yubikey and, IIRC, I had to get the sysadmin to change things so that worked.
Linux Mint OOBE is far superior, so I use that at home :-)
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