Well, I’ve never done it because it’s not part of my tasks, but for example industrial PCs used for SCADA usually run Windows, and they are never allowed on the internet, so…
Comment on Microsoft kills official way to activate windows without internet
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
look fuck microsoft, but - who is trying to activate windows without any internet access at all?
Damage@feddit.it 3 days ago
Railing5132@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Nah, they’re run by the laziest chucklefucks you’ve ever met - they’re plugged right into a broadband modem with no firewall running bog standard teamviewer or RDP awaiting any connection (no filtering) because the people setting up and using these systems have no concept of infosec. They know how to set up their industrial system, plug it into the ‘computer thingy’, and hand it off the the municipal water dude who is a flat earth, anti-fluoride, moon-landing hoax, J6-denialist who knows nothing about technology, but wants to run the town’s water treatment from his cell phone.
(not that I’m jaded by small town dynamics or anything)
Damage@feddit.it 3 days ago
Uhm… You and I have had vastly different experiences. Fortunately.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Other side of the same coin: I work for a municipality, and I can’t even connect my phone because they use MAC whitelists for the entire network. Many cities used to be pretty lax about cybersecurity, but a few high profile attacks have made most of them (at least anything larger than a small town) rethink that stance. Hell, one city a few miles away had a ransomware attack that left their city services entirely unavailable for like three weeks. That was actually studied by lots of the local cities, to see what they can do to prevent similar attacks.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I hope that’s not the only thing they do. MAC addresses are easily spoofed.
pahlimur@lemmy.world 3 days ago
We have our clients switch to Linux now. Ignition works well enough and it’s so much cheaper. It has drawbacks compared to wonderware, or the Siemens stack though. But I’ll take those issues over logging into their systems still running on winXP.
Damage@feddit.it 3 days ago
That’s what I dream of. But alas, industry moves slowly, and some especially so.
nil@piefed.ca 3 days ago
me
atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 days ago
People who live in third world countries like the US who don’t have Internet at home/internet isn’t available to them because it’s not profitable for the company providing for that area.
foodandart@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Some years ago, I was using an ancient (even then) Dell laptop that I took with me to my grandparents summer camp for two weeks vacation. Northern Vermont, landline phone service only. My dad had sent me Win 7 Ultimate and I installed it sitting on the camp deck. I called in the activation.
Not Windows, but I’ve reinstalled my Mac laptop OSes many times when I’ve swapped out a SSD. Also at camp. I did a full - unsupported no less! - install of Mojave macOS on an ancient MacPro that my aunt and uncle used to run their music and movies on. They had no internet and rented DVDs and ripped their own CDs. Once I showed my Uncle how to edit the track info in iTunes, he was off and running.
I know lots of people - older mostly - with computers that only have internet access on their phones. FFS, my mom only has text on her flip phone, (her phone provider switched over to 4G and they sent her a smartphone of some kind which she could not use, so she sent it back and they got her a 4g enabled flip phone) and I’ll mail her big USB sticks with movies and tv shows on them so she uses her laptop. No internet, no electricity even, unless it’s from their solar panels.
Pretty much anyone off the grid would phone in activation or roll with an OS that doesn’t require it (like macOS and Linux).
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I know lots of people - older mostly - with computers that only have internet access on their phones.
exactly. you can use your phone to go to the windows activation site. you don’t need the PC you’re activating to have internet.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Where do you find the Internet on a flip phone?
foodandart@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
The 4G one she’s got from her service provider offers some form of limited access. Not sure, maybe the fancy ones have it? My mom will occasionally text me links to news items she’s found.
foodandart@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
When i’m saying “Older mostly” am talking about people in their 70’s and 80’s that don’t use their phones for much more than texting and email.
NGL, at 61 I can’t use my phone for much more than that. I just cannot SEE it well enough for it to not be a massive frustrating ordeal.
Just wait until presbyopia strikes. It’s a bitch when the collagen breaks down in the body and the lenses in the eyes start to stiffen. Hit me in my mid 40’s. Fuck.
dukemirage@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Owning a summer camp, but ripping CDs?
nyan@lemmy.cafe 3 days ago
If you have no internet but want your music as a file, that’s how you go about it.
foodandart@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Indeed! Of all things, uncle turned me on to higher bitrate 320k VBR, highest quality .mp3 rips.
I got his CD collection after he died (his own music was lost as the drive had failed while he was in the nursing home) and took a few weeks and re-ripped everything for him. Gave him a junker MacBook and loaded up it and his iPod with his favorite music.
The last day I saw him - 3 days before he died, he was already seeing people that weren’t there and talking to them, which is part of the dying process I’m told…
I put his iPod on him and played him his favorite artist - Miles Davis and he stopped when the song Générique (go listen to it, it is a beautiful song) came on and he looked at me - SAW me - and smiled and said it was his favorite Miles tune.
We chatted for a few minutes more and he fell asleep and I told him I loved him and gave him a kiss and left for work. Passed away the day after the Eclipse last spring.
Beast gift I got was that jazz library from him.
foodandart@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Grandparents owned the summer camp.
Grandfather was a union electrician for over 40 years. Retired in 1994. Made fantastic coin and bought the camp in the mid-70’s, for less than $20k. Landlines only that far north into Vermont. Grandparets were both in their late 70’s early 80’s when the internet took off, so it meant nothing to them. Both were gone of old age by 2020.
Aunt was the black sheep of the family and her husband - the uncle - were old alcoholic hippies that lived hand to mouth. Welfare recipients with drug and alcohol problems who both died - one of alcohol fueled dementia (Koursakoff’s Disease) and the other of sepsis (bone infection in the foot) from unmanaged diabetes - at the start of 2024.
Your point is?
dukemirage@lemmy.world 3 days ago
„Ripping“ meant something else to me, and the tech fell out of fashion before I could know better.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Me.
CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world 3 days ago
10s of nerds on a Linux forum who definitely were messing with Windows 🙄
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
You’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking “who is trying to use Windows without any Internet access at all?”
Which is definitely some people/situations. It’s not the standard user-centric use case that Microsoft expects, but it does exist.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
no, that’s not the question. you can still use windows without internet access, you just need some other device to get to the activation website. like a phone or another computer.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I’m not, but unless I call the phone support I can’t get my windows to activate.
Avidis@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Sorry souls who don’t want to create a MS account if they just need to reimage a PC or only need a local account. Such a blatant attempt at locking folks into their ecosystem. Same as Apple.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
this isn’t about microsoft accounts or local accounts on OC. this is just about activating the OS which you can do on a provided website (without an account).