So, I’ve been having a weird issue with 1Password on Windows, lately. Whenever I try to enable passkey integration with Windows, it will automatically switch it off. I can’t even enable it in 1Password itself, either. It’s like Windows does not want it to be on at all. If it was a group policy, I’d presume Windows would say that and disable it, instead of this weird behaviour.
I’ve been chatting with 1Password support and even they’re stumped, nothing I sent came across as a blocker on their end, and I’d presume if there was I’d be told.
What I think has happened is when I installed Windows, I did two things:
- Enabled, then disabled, then re-enabled Secure Boot from when I tried to try Linux again.
- Used Winutil to disable a lot of Windows annoyances.
I’m skeptical it’s the first action, because I’d presume something would flag up on either end, but at the same time I need to keep my options open. I think it’s the second one because Winutil can perform tweaks to the operating system that can potentially break functionality, so it’s likelier to be the culprit. And yeah, that’s entirely my fault. I’ll happily take the blame for that. It’s quick to blame Windows for this, but I did use a tool that did have the potential to break elements of Windows, written by a guy who mains Linux and uses XLibre. While I appreciate the tool for what it is, I think I need to go clean and try to disable the annoyances myself. Could it be more annoying? Maybe, but less annoying than not being able to use my damn passkeys.
If anyone else ran into this and fixed it without gutting their Windows install, I’m all ears.
The thing here is, I was able to recognise what went wrong. I noticed that r/Windows11 advises against using debloater tools willy-nilly, and now I know why. I’m able to take the blame for this, unlike Linux where things are genuinely out of your control. I actually did once break Linux and knew I was to blame (when I tried to test VirtualBox and ended up nuking my Arch install), but Linux users like to blame the user for things that are fundamentally broken about desktop Linux. It’s why I had a right angry rant a few days ago about the AUR. PJB’s Linux Desktop Problems post had someone on Hacker News blaming her for using Ubuntu, when her post talks about the general problems with desktop Linux that affect more than just Ubuntu (worse apps, worse underlying technology, glibc constantly breaking applications).