The forced Microsoft Account requirement and BitLocker auto encryption can lead to catastrophic issues on Windows if you aren't careful, and especially in the case of a lockout.
I had an offline windows account on my laptop.
I was freelancing for a company that gave me a Microsoft account.
I logged into teams, but was very careful not to assign my laptop to that account. I had to use teams, but I didn’t want my client to manage my device.
Shortly after I installed Linux, which broke windows bitlocker, and I had to get my bitlocker key.
I hadn’t set up bitlocker, I wasn’t expecting it. As far as I was concerned, I had bricked my device.
On a hunch of “hmm, maybe”, I checked my Microsoft account from the client, and it has a bitlocker key which unlocked my windows install.
At which point, I disabled bitlocker and now primary Linux.
But yeh, in my experience bitlocker is transparently applied during windows install and you never know your bitlocker key. If you never log in to a Microsoft account, you will never be able to recover it if you don’t save it in advance. And if you don’t know its happened, why would you know to save it in advance?!
The fact that I was able to recover my bitlocker key for my offline/local windows account because I had installed & logged-in to teams via a client provided Microsoft account is strange as fuck.
I had an offline windows account on my laptop.
I was freelancing for a company that gave me a Microsoft account.
I logged into teams, but was very careful not to assign my laptop to that account. I had to use teams, but I didn’t want my client to manage my device.
Shortly after I installed Linux, which broke windows bitlocker, and I had to get my bitlocker key.
I hadn’t set up bitlocker, I wasn’t expecting it. As far as I was concerned, I had bricked my device.
On a hunch of “hmm, maybe”, I checked my Microsoft account from the client, and it has a bitlocker key which unlocked my windows install.
At which point, I disabled bitlocker and now primary Linux.
But yeh, in my experience bitlocker is transparently applied during windows install and you never know your bitlocker key. If you never log in to a Microsoft account, you will never be able to recover it if you don’t save it in advance. And if you don’t know its happened, why would you know to save it in advance?!
The fact that I was able to recover my bitlocker key for my offline/local windows account because I had installed & logged-in to teams via a client provided Microsoft account is strange as fuck.