https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu6zViY3sbo&t=1s
I saw this pop up and I found it pretty interesting, it looks like Microsoft is making more DRM moves on Windows generally and like it or not they're going to force everyone to upgrade to Windows 11. I went through the pain of learning the bypasses early on because I knew this was going to happen but it looks like they really are going out of their way to shut down local account setups.
This is important to bring up, oh I wish, I wish the Linux community would get their thumbs out their arses and make some kind of easy to use normie distro. The microsoft market share is ripe for the taking with every dick move that they attempt.
I would have jumped ship ages ago but the problem is the ease of use when it comes to windows the beauty of the simple double click and GUI is not to be underestimated. It's going to be a lot like anything that big tech does now it seems and people are going to be pushed more and more towards open source options because of big tech stuff simply becoming unusable crap due to the types of people that are being hired en masse at these companies.
I guess I should potentially look into Linux again and at least research my options but I don't know if in 2024 things have gotten any better beyond the god awful endless terminal nonsense that reminds me of a worse version of DOS. Please autists, please make a normie distros for Linux that let's me do gaming easily because I want to do stuff like play Morrowind and other old windows based games.
My media server is currently running Windows 10 and I refuse to upgrade to 11. Is there anyway to block all updates? I want to keep them from forcing the update. I also would switch over to Linux, but that would require me to get a 20TB external hard drive to move data around and I would need to take a day off work to do the transition. All because Linux is not too friendly with NTFS drives.
EDIT: Reading the rest of the OP's post. You do not want an easy to use normie distro. Well, not any easier than what SteamOS currently is. Because the more people that use an OS, the more likely you'll have security issues with that OS. Mainly because scammers tend to target very popular operating systems.
EDIT2: Reading the top comment here. I don't think my media server would be eligible for Windows 11 to begin with. It's a Dell Poweredge R720XD and I don't think it has that TPM that Microsoft has been trying to push on everyone.
I'm pretty sure you can block updates with a group policy, but it's going to be irritating to set up I'd guess. But like your second edit, just go into the BIOS and disable all TPM. I have that on a Windows 10 machine and it never bugs me about 11 because it's "ineligible"