PSA: How to Use a Local Account During Windows 11 22H2 Clean Install

[BSim500]

Why are they so antsy about installing offline?

There's a very good reason why Alphabet / Google is valued at $1.75tn, and it ain't selling anonymous adverts. After leaving it 5 years too late to compete in the mobile sector, MS is doing the next best thing and getting everyone to pretend their PC is a 27" Windows Mobile Phone...

 

[dyonoctis]

Because they want you to use a MS account. One that can track everything you do for *cough* "advertising" *cough* purposes.

This is the same company that thinks saying mean words is worthy of banning you from ALL games you have ever purchased from them on your account. The same company that keeps trying to tie everything into a cloud subscription service they control.

Money and control. That's all this is about.

You can complain about control, (even mac os still allow local accounts) but money? Microsoft wouldn't last long if they weren't interested in money.
With their new business model, we lost some, but we also won some. I'm pretty happy that the windows 8 licence that Igot as a student is the only purchase that I had to do, rather than spending hundreds once a windows version is eol.

You can still buy a lifetime licence to office, but they are losing ground to G-suite and its cloud/collaborative-based approach, the last company that I worked in used G-suite and gmail, so MS have to adapt. A lot of product/brands have gone extinct when they couldn't get with the times.

Google having access to so much user data/ads allows them to propose a lot of services for "free", everything is transactional, and in the current times, data/ads is probably cheaper than real money as far as the user is concerned.

 

[mechtech]

Is this for home version only?? I thought professional versions could still do an offline account??

 

[ThrashZone]

Is this for home version only?? I thought professional versions could still do an offline account??

Hi,
Most likely regional
USA is doomed where as other countries have stronger restrictions on companies dominance

 

[BSim500]

Is this for home version only?? I thought professional versions could still do an offline account??

Microsoft are constantly changes the rules for the worse:-

"Similar to Windows 11 Home edition, Windows 11 Pro edition now requires internet connectivity during the initial device setup (OOBE) only. If you choose to setup device for personal use, MSA will be required for setup as well. You can expect Microsoft Account to be required in subsequent WIP flights."

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-i...ncing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22557/

 

[fec32a4de]

Not what I asked. In previous versions if you had no internet it would default to an offline account. Does that no longer work? do you HAVE to have internet to set up 11 now?

Yes, unless its Pro version.

The new options are:
1. Online account
2. oobe as mentioned
3. Pro version / domain

So yes, you HAVE to have internet to setup 11 now, unless you do either workaround 2 or 3

 

[R-T-B]

Hi,
You can still use shift+F10 after asked and use oobe\bypassnro in cmd

That's the officially documented means to bypass yes. Less likely to be disabled too.

 

[maxli86]

I don't understand why Microsoft have to enforce usage of MS account?
For me I prefer setting up the PC offline so I can install all the drivers from manufacturer website first before connecting to the Internet.
When the PC is connected to internet than it is very tedious to ensure all the drivers especially the graphic card driver is install
with the latest version.

There are workaround like using the CMD command which I hope it should not be removed or block in the future.
Another question regarding usage of MS account is are the user files on the PC itself or not?
Those who signed in your PC using MS account, the files are sync through Onedrive so your files may not present in
the PC itself.

If your PC crashes one day and you want to retrieve the files, it may not be present in the user directory but the Onedrive directory.
Which is why I still prefer offline account not because of ease of installation but the files are present in the PC itself.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

There's a very good reason why Alphabet / Google is valued at $1.75tn, and it ain't selling anonymous adverts. After leaving it 5 years too late to compete in the mobile sector, MS is doing the next best thing and getting everyone to pretend their PC is a 27" Windows Mobile Phone...

MS is valued at $1.77T, and it got there by selling windows and office, and dominating areas that needed fine control over users via active directory and domain management. They dont *need* to take away local accounts and shovel ads down our throats to be competitive.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Although there is not one ms app I want to use some people do so I ran into this way to use some ms apps using a local account

Add Microsoft account to Local account for Hybrid account in Windows 11 Tutorial

A Microsoft account (MSA) is a good choice if a user wants to use the same account on multiple devices, or wants to make it easy to use all / any Microsoft services. Setting up a preinstalled Windows 10 on a new device, after a clean install, or creating a new user on existing Windows...

www.elevenforum.com

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

You can complain about control, (even mac os still allow local accounts) but money? Microsoft wouldn't last long if they weren't interested in money.

See above. They already *have* over a trillion in worth. But its never enough, they must create MORE profit, damn the consequences. They dont need to, they are already filthy rich.

With their new business model, we lost some, but we also won some. I'm pretty happy that the windows 8 licence that Igot as a student is the only purchase that I had to do, rather than spending hundreds once a windows version is eol.

I'd much rather spend $15 on a new windows license every 8-10 years rather then have restricted, online DRM enforced windows shoved down my throat, with online accounts and advertisements galore. The only people who paid hundreds for windows are those who couldnt wait a year for a good deal.

You can still buy a lifetime licence to office, but they are losing ground to G-suite and its cloud/collaborative-based approach, the last company that I worked in used G-suite and gmail, so MS have to adapt. A lot of product/brands have gone extinct when they couldn't get with the times.

Google having access to so much user data/ads allows them to propose a lot of services for "free", everything is transactional, and in the current times, data/ads is probably cheaper than real money as far as the user is concerned.

MS has no problem making money right now, and office standalone is still crucial for companies. If MS tries to force these cloud versions too hard, people will continue to jump ship when they figure out that google can do all of this for free, without the godawful microsoft cloud interface.

If MS had learned anything and made their UI not horrible, they wouldnt be losing customers.

 

[BSim500]

MS is valued at $1.77T, and it got there by selling windows and office, and dominating areas that needed fine control over users via active directory and domain management. They dont *need* to take away local accounts and shovel ads down our throats to be competitive.

I agree they don't need to financially, but "Microsoft. Microsoft never changes..." Personally I think the only "actual W7 replacement" BS-free version of W10-11 is LTSC (the same debloated one they go out of their way to refuse to consumers / small businesses because it's not control-freakish enough...) 'Modern' Software As A Service Windows is simply going to get worse by design and probably end up subscription-only (even if that subscription is $0, it would basically render the OS unusable without an account). I wouldn't put it past them for Windows 11 (2025) to end up a "Windows 365"...

 

[AusWolf]

I guess I'll be keeping my handy Win 10 ver 2004 installer for a while, then.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Think 10-11 LTSC is subscription it's just bounced off a business server to activate isn't it ?

 

[BSim500]

Hi,
Think 10-11 LTSC is subscription it's just bounced off a business server to activate isn't it ?

In theory at least... In practise, there are probably more gamers running it than ATM's and MRI scanners.

 

[ThrashZone]

In theory at least... In practise, there are probably more gamers running it than ATM's and MRI scanners.

Hi,
Indeed so yeah that ride could stop at anytime if the business... cracked down

 

[The DOOM SL4YER]

rufus also lets you bypass it

 

[ThrashZone]

rufus also lets you bypass it

Hi,
Yep I forgot I used rufus on the 22h2 iso before mounting it I couldn't edit sources folder on a disk image you'd have to use the update assistance for the iso come to find out seeing that way Home version wouldn't be in the way.

 

[Readlight]

Disconect internet in setup process, install mising drivers, connect. This setup phase, done correctly, takes time.

 

[Ravenmaster]

Microsoft trying to block offline accounts is the dumbest shit I've ever come across. A few days ago I got a new CPU so I started a clean install of Windows 11 22H2. My motherboard's LAN drivers weren't automatically installed by Windows during the process and my room is quite a distance from my router so I couldn't pick up a WiFi signal. I had planned to just make an offline account then load up my motherboard drivers from a USB stick i'd prepaired. 22H2 wouldn't even let me onto the screen where I could put in my email address since I didn't have an internet connection.

I had to enter the CMD prompt and use the OOBE\BYPASSNRO workaround just to get onto the next stage and into the desktop. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Logoffon]

rufus also lets you bypass it

While this sounds convenient I'd pretty much avoid rufus (especially if an ISO with install.wim/esd that's larger than 4GB being used) due to its UEFI NTFS driver often causing machines to freak out over "duplicate" drivers and refuses to boot from installer drive.

 

[cvaldes]

Microsoft trying to block offline accounts is the dumbest shit I've ever come across. A few days ago I got a new CPU so I started a clean install of Windows 11 22H2. My motherboard's LAN drivers weren't automatically installed by Windows during the process and my room is quite a distance from my router so I couldn't pick up a WiFi signal. I had planned to just make an offline account then load up my motherboard drivers from a USB stick i'd prepaired. 22H2 wouldn't even let me onto the screen where I could put in my email address since I didn't have an internet connection.

I had to enter the CMD prompt and use the OOBE\BYPASSNRO workaround just to get onto the next stage and into the desktop. Absolutely ridiculous.

For future reference, most motherboard manufacturers have support websites that provide driver software installers for their products. The software packages might be old but at least one knows that they were probably qualified by the motherboard manufacturer.

I keep a small repository of driver software for each of my motherboards/graphics cards. If I know I'm going to reinstall the operating system, I'll copy these onto a USB thumbdrive. I keep a few other things handy: certain utilities, DirectX 2010, Microsoft .NET runtimes, Visual C++ redistributables, etc.

 

[Deleted member 177333]

Ya this is really irritating. I hope we can continue finding bypass options.

 

[Jism]

No joke, in a few years people won't be allowed to own anything.

Linux. There's so many good alternatives by now, its mature enough to run any windows based app on Linux if you need to.

 

[mechtech]

Microsoft are constantly changes the rules for the worse:-

"Similar to Windows 11 Home edition, Windows 11 Pro edition now requires internet connectivity during the initial device setup (OOBE) only. If you choose to setup device for personal use, MSA will be required for setup as well. You can expect Microsoft Account to be required in subsequent WIP flights."

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-i...ncing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22557/

It’s looking more and more like my next OS will be Zorin or something