Back in January Microsoft encrypted all my hard drives without saying anything. I was playing around with a dual boot yesterday and somehow aggravated Secureboot. So my C: panicked and required a 40 character key to unlock.

Your key is backed up to the Microsoft account associated with your install. Which is considerate to the hackers. (and saved me from a re-install) But if you’ve got an unactivated copy, local account, or don’t know your M$ account credentials, your boned.

Control Panel > System Security > Bitlocker Encryption.

BTW, I was aware that M$ was doing this and even made fun of the effected users. Karma.

  • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
    34·
    22 hours ago

    They desperately wanted to eliminate personal computers and replace them with dumb terminals running over the net.

    I don’t know about that.

    Dumb terminal concept was more what Chromebook was doing.

    Microsoft is doing something even stupider.

    • jim3692@discuss.online
      3·
      11 hours ago

      I think they want you to only use Windows and pay for cloud storage.

      By enforcing BitLocker and Secure Boot, they are trying to eliminate dual-booting (you don’t need to dual-boot Windows/Linux anyway, as you can just use WSL2 /s).

      By enforcing disk encryption, in general, they try to force the use of cloud storage, by making data recovery nearly impossible. Most people are probably too lazy to buy external storage, and manually copy their files over.

      This guarantees 2 money streams. One from Windows’s tracking/advertising and the other from OneDrive subscriptions.

    • CafecitoHippo@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      22 hours ago

      Dumb terminal concept was more what Chromebook was doing.

      I mean, for a lot of people they’re fine especially if they’re priced appropriately. Especially with a lot more software as a service out there. My problem is that all of them have a built in drop dead date on when they’re going to stop getting updates and there’s not really a great option for the devices post ChromeOS.

      ChromeOS certainly can be a good system. I still have my old CR-48 from when I got selected to test the OS and even when it was in its infancy, it was solid. I used it for a lot of my college career because it was better than my Asus eeePC which had Ubuntu on it.