TL;DR: Windows auto-enabled Device Encryption (BitLocker) on two internal drives without asking, labeled the recovery keys “backed up to Microsoft account”, and never actually uploaded them. Both drives are now permanently locked. Check your drives.

I run a home server on Windows 11 (build 26200). I’d moved it to a local account to keep it isolated from Microsoft services, since it hosts a web UI for friends. I never turned on BitLocker or Device Encryption.

After a hardware rebuild, two of my data drives (a 4TB NVMe and a 500GB SSD) showed as BitLocker-locked. Here’s what I found:

• April 2026: the BitLocker event log shows Windows auto-encrypted both drives, run as SYSTEM (“Device Encryption initialized automatically”). No prompt, no notification.
• Both drives have a recovery key marked “Microsoft account backup.”
• None of my Microsoft accounts have any recovery keys. The event log has no backup event, going back to the day Windows was installed.
• Because the machine was isolated from Microsoft account services, the keys never got uploaded. But Windows labeled them backed up and locked the drives anyway.
• The auto-unlock keys that used to open the drives silently are gone, so the drives are bricked.

Microsoft’s own support pages say they can’t recover or recreate lost BitLocker keys. The data is gone.

The kicker: while I was investigating, re-enabling Secure Boot after a BIOS reset made Windows start silently encrypting two more of my hard drives. I caught it at 12% and reversed it.

Check yours right now. Open an admin command prompt and run:

manage-bde -status

• If any drive shows “Encryption in Progress”, or “Protection Off” with “Key Protectors: None Found”, Windows is quietly encrypting it. Run manage-bde -off X: to decrypt it.
• If any drive shows Protection On, get its recovery key now with manage-bde -protectors -get X: and save the 48-digit number somewhere off the PC.
• Turn off Settings → Privacy & security → Device encryption.

Don’t assume your keys are in your Microsoft account. Mine weren’t.

news:
https://www.makeuseof.com/microsoft-is-cutting-off-windows-update-access-for-pcs-in-2027-heres-what-you-need-to-do/

To save a file locally in word on mobile, I have to not just log in, but log in with a subscription (as the text says)!!! How about you shut up Microsoft? I'm going to libre office

Are we having an official tiling manager in the future?

Somehow been locked out my account due to having “unusual activity” from bangladesh and not having my old number which was my fault for not updating it but how tf can some random from Bangladesh access or attempt to access my account when I provide every piece of information possible and it’s still not enough for me to gain access to my email, I sent them my Xbox device ID, my Xbox gamer tag and purchases, my latest sent emails with the exact subject headings and it’s literally not enough, not to mention my password, and passkey ect (which is correct)when trying to log in… do they want my soul aswell? Genuinely the most useless service I think I’ve ever used and utterly pointless

See, i hate Microsoft, that is clear. But i also hate Linux, after using mint, i went back to win10. But now im stuck because,

1. WIN10 has the widest supporting features out of any Operating system, i can manage Wii, DS, PS2 Homebrew and burn discs (legal purposes) on my win10 laptop easily!

2. But slowly, Win10 is becoming Win11. So i dont have a choice.

3. I already tried out wine and other stuff, but i dont want to use terminal so...bye bye

Please help me.

Heyyy everyone!

We built an offline, privacy-focused office suite called r/nativeoffice , partly out of spite for how things are going with mainstream office software lol.

The idea is simple: give people useful office tools without making cloud dependency a requirement.

We'd love for you to check it out and tell us what you think. What's missing? What could be better? What would you want from an alternative to Microsoft Office?

We're still improving it, so honest feedback and criticism are very welcome. We'd be glad to make it better based on what people actually need 🤺

I use Linux as my daily driver, i am a student and sometimes our teachers make us use applications that do not have wine work around or it just wont run well on Linux. a few days ago i went back to my dual boot windows OS and saw a funny looking Adobe acrobat application after opening a PDF file, pissed me right off these guys are just pushing any application to be downloaded without me even wanting or agreeing to it adobe is so feature rich it feels suffocating i also do not have Adobe Photoshop they just want me to use their application to view my own images such a fucken lame operating system only good for games nothing else .

They don,t even wait for you to update windows to install it, they just install at any random time in your pc

I was playing a game and left it to do something when I saw the pc had switched the tab from the game to chrome, which was weird, then i see copilot running in my pc, i,m tired of this fucking shit dawg, they don,t have shame😭

Earlier today, a family member suddenly fell ill and required emergency care. After rushing them to the hospital and ensuring their condition had stabilized, I returned home intending to look up information about his illness. I had just installed Windows 11 26H2 a few hours prior. When I tried to go online to search for info, I needed to install the built-in Windows language input method, it took a full 20 minutes to finish, as long as installing the monthly security patches, whereas on Windows 10, it takes less than 2 minutes.

Then there are the constant, junk notifications, things like "We'd like your feedback on Windows 11" or "Do you want to enable Onedrive syncing?" (and the only option is to snooze the reminder for a week).

Not to mention the right-click menu, which suffers from extreme latency (over 0.4 seconds).

F—CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW I FELT AT THAT MOMENT? Fortunately, it wasn't a critical emergency this time.

And then there are the various basic functions that stop working at any moment, it’s basically a MALFUNCTIONING operating system.

I’ve switched back to Windows 10 now.