Headline is inaccurate. Seems to only be a restriction on live accounts, not windows 8. If you use a non-live account to log in, there isn't this restriction. I just changed mine to a 24 character password with no issues, but I'm using a domain account.
That said, major portions of what's new Windows 8 require a windows live account to use (the app store, most of the metro apps, etc).
It seems to me like a lot of ostensibly technically-literate people are installing Windows 8 and not realizing that it's asking them to create a Live account instead of a Windows account. Is the option to create a normal account difficult to find or something?
Like others have said it is pretty central. With that said, it isn't very difficult to create a local account. I believe there is a button which takes you to a non-live account set up page, though there is an "are you sure? live accounts will really make your experience better blablabla etc." screen which you need to also click a button on.
I think it's more that the live account creation is front and center during the install process. It's pretty integral to the functionality of Windows 8 as well. While my login is my domain login, I use my live account for much of the Win8 functionality.
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Headline is inaccurate. Seems to only be a restriction on live accounts, not windows 8. If you use a non-live account to log in, there isn't this restriction. I just changed mine to a 24 character password with no issues, but I'm using a domain account.
That said, major portions of what's new Windows 8 require a windows live account to use (the app store, most of the metro apps, etc).
It seems to me like a lot of ostensibly technically-literate people are installing Windows 8 and not realizing that it's asking them to create a Live account instead of a Windows account. Is the option to create a normal account difficult to find or something?
Like others have said it is pretty central. With that said, it isn't very difficult to create a local account. I believe there is a button which takes you to a non-live account set up page, though there is an "are you sure? live accounts will really make your experience better blablabla etc." screen which you need to also click a button on.
So it's a 2 step flow.
There's a link right under the live account login/creation "Create a non-Microsoft account". It's on the same account creation screen.
I think it's more that the live account creation is front and center during the install process. It's pretty integral to the functionality of Windows 8 as well. While my login is my domain login, I use my live account for much of the Win8 functionality.