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>I felt vindicated when I bought a Lenovo laptop after using mac for the last 8+ years and found out you need to create a Microsoft account to use it!

I don't have the same laptop so I can't comment on your exact situation. That said, I have a Windows machine and I am not using a Microsoft account to log in so your experience is not universal.

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it is a recent change: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103683

A colleague just bought a new desktop and set it up last weekend. He ran into Microsoft wanting him to login to a MS account _on initial install_. He ended up having to go into the BIOS to disable networking so he could force the installer to let him initially setup a local account. I don't know if this is for every install and is just my anecdotal perspective.

It's a dark pattern. You can get around it, but it's not easy for normal people to do.

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