Well I guess welcome to Totalitarian global governance according to Klaus Shwab..
My Mothers words:
My son, I brought you from a totalitarian state to be free here. Now it is happening here as well, I'm sorry.

I'm a happy casual Linux user and I love the feel of freedom and full control over my OS, but I'm still really scared by news like that – I simply understand that Linux userbase is not big enough to keep alive businesses like GOG, which rely on Windows users and I really afraid of such changes. Even providing support for new Win generation is some significant effort for GOG, it's true even without those kind of additional challenges... Bad news, definitely.

Must be nice to lose access to your Windows PC like with my Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. MS account, not even once.
Remember 10 years ago when Linux looked it was going to become viable and then it turned out to be a psy-op?

No such thing.

I use mostly Libre formats for my studies too and it's indeed annoying that both Libre Office and MS Office aren't compatible with each other to this day. Not much of a pain if the team working with you is full Libre, but when it's not, we just accept the suffering.

Windows boot is only usefull for me to play 1 or 2 games. Best thing to do right now would probably be to disconnect a Win10 machine off the internet forever and maintain it.

Hope GOG manages this issue well.

What you mean by Linux being a psy-op?

It's not a separate entity, it's part of the control system that powers all big infrastructures, with backdoors, remote access, etc. You're not freeing yourself from anything by using Linux, same with cryptocurrency.

Well yes. You can believe that. But then we will need to start talking about what is freedom. There is no true freedom through man technology. One could work hard to get as much freedom as they might want, but true freedom from those technologies and corporations isn't attainable in this scenario.

The Linux plus in this discussion is: it is more free than Microsoft. You can read the codes. You can revise what changed. You can see what they're doing. Not 100%, I may agree, but still, with knowledge and research, quite a lot.
You can disconnect your machine from the internet and even so maintain it and update it through offline packages.

I don't think the discussion here is: "Is the world truly free from those corporations and telemetry?"
But: "What system provides more options to fight against corporation tirany?"

Linux is the clear winner in this case. A simple Windows Home user can't understand what's going on on their system, while the most beginner of Linux users will at least study to try and understand what's going on, because Linux requires more technic knowledge to use and maintain. This alone is a factor that contributes to the FOSS mentality.

The same applies to cryptocurrency I think. But we talked too much already about this topic and the risk is high for us to diverge from the thread original post main issue.

Agree , these won't stop an abusive gov from enslaving anybody

You're not fighting anything by using Linux, but you can use it if you prefer it.

This happens every time Microsoft adds the need to login with a Microsoft account. People start being annoyed and they think about boycotting Windows and moving to Linux. But then they don't...

If you're are really concerned about this, you'd be on Linux already. My suggestion: strict segregation! Use Linux for your daily business: WWW and e-mails and such. Do your Internet banking and your "digital life" on Linux.

BUT use dual boot with Windows, so you can e.g. play games on Windows.

As for the need for a Microsoft account in Windows 11: this actually started with Windows 8. There was a big "continue (with online account)" button, and a very tiny "continue without one" that a lot of people missed...

Now with Windows 10 Microsoft started to annoy users regularly, demanding to get an online user account... Since I use Windows solely for gaming, I'm less concerned but still I'm using an old-fashioned local user account.

As for Windows 11 (Home): I found that there is no way to easily overcome the mandatory online part, BUT I also found that there is only one point during installation where this is necessary. So I made a temporary hotspot with my phone, but the phone wasn't connected to the Internet. Hence Windows 11 was able to connect to the hotspot, but it wasn't able to reach Microsoft for creating an online account. THEN it presented me with the option to continue with a local user account...

So all you need really is–still, as it has been all those years–knowledge of how to overcome the procedure.

My suggestion to everyone playing GOG games: continue to do so on Windows. And, yes, try Linux and see if it is an option for you to segregate your professional and your business work (booting Linux) from your gaming experience (booting Windows). That way you can happily ignore telemetry and other inconveniences, because you know that they don't really get all your data...

Okay, but why is it bad for me if they get my data? If it is not then we can just skip the linux part altogether and just use win10.

You don't need Windows for gaming, especially if you mostly play DRM-free games from GOG or Zoom Platform. I have yet to come across a GOG (or Zoom) game that doesn't work well in Wine. There are probably a handful that don't, which people will point to, but that percentage seems very small.

If you're interested in playing older games, you're probably better off on Linux for those.

I didn't say you do. But to me segregation is important. My Linux system doesn't have binary-only programs on it, at least as far as I can avoid it. (E.g. firmware files and microcode is obviously binary-only.)

I strictly separate my Linux experience–open source, trusted, community-based–from my binary experience–Windows, telemetry, untrusted (by me).

And that's what it all comes down to for me: Who do you trust?

I don't want to run a binary-only game on Linux, be it a native port or by using Wine. I don't know if a game might leak some telemetry data, maybe including a directory tree of $HOME.

I don't care if a game does that on Windows. Because I strictly segregate... (Windows doesn't have access to my Linux files.)

EVERYTHING HAS TO BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET AT ALL TIMES AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO HAVE AN ACCOUNT!!!

This is the face of digital media now . Sometimes I just say fuck the internet and fuck accountability..

Offline and privacy is dying because of this.

I knew the dvoters are the ones who can't even answer a simple question.

What do you want to hide anyway?
direacotry tree of $HOME what is there to hide?:O