Eureka! Alt+F4 bypasses W11 Home's mandatory internet connection screen!

[+Warwagon MVC]

Yesterday I was installing Windows 11 on real hardware. The Ultrabook I was using had a windows 10 home key, so it proceeded to install Windows 11 Home Edition. To my surprise when I got to the Wi-Fi selection screen, it would not let me proceed past without connecting to Wi-Fi.

 

On a whim, I thought I would try Alt+F4 and what would you know, the Wi-Fi connection screen went away and it prompted me to add a local account

 

Here is the full video of the Windows 11 Home Edition installation on real hardware and me testing a few things

 

Posted the Neowin article over on Steve Gibsons GRC news group and got this response from a member

 

Quote

 

"That's interesting. The machine that I used to test the install does not have wifi, it was a VM on my desktop. It showed the ethernet connection, but "not connected", and wouldn't let me past that point until I connected the ethernet. I didn't try the Alt-F4 as I was not aware of that."

 

 

 

Installing Windows 11 Home on Real Hardware (HP envy Ultrabook, Core i7, 8GB and 250 SSD)

 

 

My Eureka! Moment! 

 

 

 

[CloudEngineer]

i'm keen to boot this up on my daily but not while the source of the ISO is unverified, 

 

Good find though!

[adrynalyne]

2 hours ago, rand0m.bullet said:

i'm keen to boot this up on my daily but not while the source of the ISO is unverified, 

 

Good find though!

I would never put something like this on a daily. Unless my computer was unimportant to what I do. 

[+Warwagon MVC]

3 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

I would never put something like this on a daily. Unless my computer was unimportant to what I do. 

not a daily driver. Just a laptop I had laying around. I just wanted to see what it looked like on Real hardware. Didn't tie it to any accounts and just a guest wifi network.

[adrynalyne]

1 minute ago, warwagon said:

not a daily driver. Just a laptop I had laying around. I just wanted to see what it looked like on Real hardware. Didn't tie it to any accounts and just a guest wifi network.

I was replying to rand0m.bullet who was contemplating putting it on his daily. 🙂

[George P Global Moderator]

42 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

I was replying to rand0m.bullet who was contemplating putting it on his daily. 🙂

A few people have said it's pretty stable though, at it's core it's been tested for months already internally and from insiders minus the new UI layer.   From the sounds of it, they've pretty much decupled the UI from the rest and are free to push out updates even through the store if they wanted.   

[adrynalyne]

33 minutes ago, George P said:

A few people have said it's pretty stable though, at it's core it's been tested for months already internally and from insiders minus the new UI layer.   From the sounds of it, they've pretty much decupled the UI from the rest and are free to push out updates even through the store if they wanted.   

Stability is one thing. Security is another. Who knows what this is sending home and whether it’s even encrypted. Internal builds are not designed with privacy in mind. Then there is the whole cluster-f of whatever it will eventually become and Windows 10. 

[+Warwagon MVC]

Just now, adrynalyne said:

Internal builds are not designed with privacy in mind. 

Either is Windows 10

[adrynalyne]

5 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Either is Windows 10

 So far telemetry in 10 is still guess work that it’s leaking private details. People swear it is because it’s encrypted. Well duh. It should be. 
 

My point is, when developers release

internal debug builds, they are often far more vocal, sometimes even leaving data sent unencrypted. I wouldn’t want that off a private network myself. That might not be the case here but I value my company, passwords, and code repositories too much to chance it. 
 

 

[George P Global Moderator]

20 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

 So far telemetry in 10 is still guess work that it’s leaking private details. People swear it is because it’s encrypted. Well duh. It should be. 
 

My point is, when developers release

internal debug builds, they are often far more vocal, sometimes even leaving data sent unencrypted. I wouldn’t want that off a private network myself. That might not be the case here but I value my company, passwords, and code repositories too much to chance it. 
 

 

If you set the base telemetry as the option isn't it the same thing it's been since at least Windows 7?  If not older?  Why  are people so up in arms over this now?

[adrynalyne]

43 minutes ago, George P said:

If you set the base telemetry as the option isn't it the same thing it's been since at least Windows 7?  If not older?  Why  are people so up in arms over this now?

I’m this development build, I am 100% certain there is more than what you can turn off. It would be weird if there wasn’t. I’m not up in arms over it, I am just stating I wouldn’t trust that it’s not sending a lot more data than your typical production build. That’s probably why the TPM 2.0 requirement some are hacking out of it. 

Edited June 19, 2021 by adrynalyne

[George P Global Moderator]

38 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

I’m this development build, I am 100% certain there is more than what you can turn off. It would be weird if there wasn’t. I’m not up in arms over it, I am just stating I wouldn’t trust that it’s not sending a lot more data than your typical production build. That’s probably why the TPM 2.0 requirement some are hacking out of it. 

I get you, I was commenting more in general with Windows 10 and now 11 and telemetry.   

[CloudEngineer]

On 20/06/2021 at 02:15, adrynalyne said:

I would never put something like this on a daily. Unless my computer was unimportant to what I do. 

meh, my daily driver at home isn't important

[+Warwagon MVC]

Posted it over on the GRC newsgroups and Steve Gibson replied. He will be mentioning this tip on the Security Now Podcast. I asked if he could create a URL shortner to the Neowin article.

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

Added my 3 mins of fame on Security now to the first post.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Turns out ALT+F4 works on the windows 10 setup too, on the Wi-Fi connection screen when it pressing ALT + F4 it takes you straight to local account creation and also bypasses the are you sure you don't want to connect to the internet screen.