It caches your credentials so you can still login offline. But you do need to be online when you're logging into your PC for the first time, post-install.
There are some unofficial hacks to bypass the online account requirement, but MS have been actively stamping these out. Now the current situation isn't like it's impossible to bypass this, mind you (as far as I'm aware there's at least a couple of workarounds), but normal users won't know/care and will end up just creating an online account.
Funny a the stats he points to show a smaller number of devices being recorded each time. So of course the percentage would go up. There are still more Windows devices in active use compared to all MacOS/iOS devices.
We as tech enthusiasts killed a viable 3rd option. For all its warts Microsoft created a great mobile os, but we killed it. If we could convince them to bring it back to be the true alternative to the existing duopoly in might fix these issues.
really? i have to use procman and associated utilities often and they really pale in comparison with linux and even moreso other unix utils (like dtrace)
There are some unofficial hacks to bypass the online account requirement, but MS have been actively stamping these out. Now the current situation isn't like it's impossible to bypass this, mind you (as far as I'm aware there's at least a couple of workarounds), but normal users won't know/care and will end up just creating an online account.