[Intro]
At least most of you have seen brand new computers, laptops on the shelves of hardware stores. And most of you have seen some PCs or laptops without OS or with FreeDOS installed, ...
...but there may be laptops already on the shelf that already have a Windows system.
But the full version of the system is shown there, and any visitor can deliberately or for fun do with the system on the showcase laptop whatever he wants: put a game, create an account, limit anything, and so on.
And for such cases a special mode in Windows was invented: Windows Retail Mode.
[what it's called in Russian]
In this video we'll look at that.
This mode is mainly useful and intended for employees of retail stores who want to demonstrate Windows to customers.
This mode was first added with the release of Windows 10, in 2015, and the most interesting thing is that such a mode has not been announced anywhere.
At first, I thought that enabling this mode required a necessarily activated Windows. But no, it doesn't seem to matter to the system :D
In Windows 10, this mode is activated in the Settings app, under "Updates and security", "Activation" tab.
For Windows 11, this is turned on slightly differently: the "About" tab and the "Product key and activation".
When you open this tab, hover your cursor over the word Windows 11 Pro in bold and click on it until you hear the system sound.
A window prompting you to switch to the "retail demo" will appear.
Note, however, that all your settings, user folders like "Documents" and "Music", programs, local and tethered accounts will be untethered and deleted, and the system will perform a full reset.
And it's really true, if you find someone like that trying to do this on a real computer, don't do it.
Seriously.
This will take down your entire current system, hey. I'm testing it myself on a virtual machine right now.
So, we click "Yes" and we see the "Retail Demo Experience" setting window. But in the Russian version it is called as "Microsoft Account" (or so it should be, I do not understand...)
It asks us for the retail access code, the retailer's SKU, and the store ID.
But we don't need to provide any of this. All these items are optional, so just click "Next" and the next configuration step appears: deleting the administrator account.
We are offered to set the password for the future administrator account and after how many days to delete this account to ensure that the client who looks at the showcase PC has no access to administrator rights at all.
Press "Done" and the system is sent to reboot.
After restarting, we are automatically logged into the account of a certain... (what? who is it?)
*beep* [we're saving your ears]
After restarting, we are automatically logged into the account of a certain Nikita Smirnov,...
...but this is the standard first and last name: in the English version of the system the user is referred to as Darrin DeYoung.
Also during the login process, the Microsoft servers create an account with a random username and password. And this is what we will focus on later.
And a completely clean system appears in front of us and after some time after logging in it reboots again.
And after all reboots it checks for updates to UWP applications, and if there is an update to any standard UWP application, it downloads it and updates it (logical)
Later, a specific application called "Microsoft Retail Demo Provisioning" is being launched,...
...where it downloads all the necessary demo files, services, and installs popular apps like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and other apps that are tied to the region.
We will also talk about these applications and how they actually work later.
However, while downloading this content, a special full-screen application opens, which simply shows the Windows logo and various animations with it, and the entire setup takes place in the background.
And it shows the old Windows logo... :/
After everything is downloaded, we see another demo video, presenting Windows 11, and in the corner of the screen there is a QR code and if you scan it, you will get to the main page of Windows at the Microsoft site.
But we are not interested in the video, so we remove it with just a simple mouse movement.
A new window appears with the title Demo Hub, which briefly shows the characteristics of the computer, the name of the manufacturer of the computer, an advertisement saying that there is a free upgrade and here we are presented with Windows 11.
The application cannot be closed in the usual way, it can be minimized to a compact view, which will show the specifications of the demonstrated computer.
And if you close it through the task manager, it opens again.
But okay, you're not likely to be interested in that. The interesting thing here is that there is a separate Microsoft account created for us.
Yeah, as I said before, when you turn on demo mode, we are created a Microsoft account that is attached to our system and essentially gives us a try of all the features of the system.
But the account is created on the servers side of live.com with a login RDM and random numbers. And with a random password. (For those who don't know, live.com is owned by Microsoft)
That is, if we try to log in to the account from another device, it will not work because we simply do not know the password from the account
And a restore account request will not give any results
But still, we have a full Microsoft account with Outlook mail, Microsoft Edge synchronization, OneDrive cloud, access to Microsoft Teams and other services from Microsoft.
To demonstrate that this is a real and full Microsoft account, I will upload the file to OneDrive and write an email from this account to my personal email account.
I send a letter and my personal e-mail it without any problems received this letter.
For example, I will upload a picture to my OneDrive and share this file as a link.
And it works as well, I open the link and I get the file that I downloaded without any problems.
Now let's look at how apps like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and other apps work and how they work.
Very simple: they are ordinary web applications that are built on Microsoft Edge.
For example, I open Instagram, its window appears, and after a couple of seconds, the mobile version of Instagram opens in that window.
B - Budget
The only exceptions to all the popular apps that the system has downloaded for me are Spotify and Yandex.Music. Yandex.Music is based on UWP, and Spotify is a Win32 application.
This mode has an administrator mode, it opens in the program, which has already been called before - "Microsoft Retail Demo Provisioning" when you click on the "Administrator mode" button.
The password here is special, not the one we set at the beginning.
This password is "trs10".
And the password that we set at the beginning of enabling mode is attached to the RetailAdmin account with full administrator rights.
And the account we are currently checking everything with, which in the Russian localization of the system is called "Nikita Smirnov" - with restricted rights.
When running any utility like the CMD or Windows Powershell, we will be asked for the administrator account password to run such a utility.
Enter the password and we see the admin screen, where you can change the specifications of the device, specify the price and other parameters;...
...delete or upload your demo video to replace the standard one, change the shutdown time, set the automatic connection to a certain Wi-Fi network...
...and import your demonstration programs.
There is also a button for changing common mode settings, where there is a complete removal of all demo materials and complete turning off the demo mode.
What is the conclusion...?
It's just not there. *slight laughter*
This feature is not needed at all, and essentially, it does not make any sense at all.
Yes, this feature is mostly useful and designed for retail store employees who want to show customers a computer with pre-installed Windows.
But, I would not be surprised if it is not needed there too.
The specifications of the PC can be written on a piece of paper and glued to the showcase where the computer being demonstrated is located. There is no difference between the demo mode and the normal mode, except for a free Microsoft account and a bunch of branded and regional applications.
But if someone works in some kind of hardware store like "5 Element" or "Electrosila" in Belarus, or in Russia "DNS"
Then I would be interested to know if this mode is needed there at all. Because I don't know - it's puzzling, to be honest.
How does it all get turned off?
Go to "Microsoft Retail Demo Provisioning", click "Admin Panel", enter the access code (if you forgot, the access code is trs10),...
...press the "Change RDX Settings" button, in the window that opens, press "Advanced Setup" and there will be a button "Delete RDX" - and it disables this mode completely.
However, in order to disable the mode, you must again do a full reset of the device. And this again deletes all programs from the system, personal settings, accounts and other system information.
That is, after disconnection you will have a completely clean system again, but without all these things.
And the tied Microsoft account that was made in demo mode, you will lose forever.
As if you had just installed Windows on your computer.
That's the way it is...
And that's it, I hope you had interesting.
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