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Comment by kro | Hacker News Reader

Installing without internet connection also has the major benefit that it allows you to use a local user account rather than forcing you to signup for an online Microsoft/hotmail/.. account

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You can install it with local user, it just takes more time and they will nag you so you have to press ESC a couple of times. Most people don't know about this and are coerced into creating MS account, this isn't even some sort of dark pattern, it's a completely fraudulent practice.

I just installed from a freshly downloaded Win 10 ISO, and there was either no option for a local account, or I just haven't triggered the way to escape creating an online account. At that point, there simply was nowhere to click on the UI, I had the choice of either creating one on the spot, or using one that already exists, and that's it. Really hated the experience.

This very exact specific occurrence happened to me a while back and made me so livid I cold powered off the entire machine, downloaded Linux onto a flash drive from a different laptop, and have been running happily since. The forced auto reboot install of updates really pissed me off and then this forced ms account on install was the last straw. Haven’t used a Microsoft product personally ever since.

It's a jarring experience. They always seem to know better, and as the years went on, they made harder and harder to properly use the system as a power user.

Rufus (the ISO to Flash Drive app) recently added a feature to create a local user right into the installation media, remove telemetry, and remove windows 11 hardware restrictions. It's worked like a charm so far.

Holy shit, that’s awesome. Already loved Rufus but this is a whole other level.

And even if you want to use an online account for e.g. OneDrive you do not want to login when installing windows because it names your user folder to an abbreviated version of your email.

Didn't they remove the option to use a local account? https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-11-requiire-microsoft...

Nope.

Simply unplug the internet cable, works in the latest windows 11.

I did not want to connect the laptop to the WiFi at all to risk an online account. When googling it, there was a video that stated I needed to:

Shift+F10 to open CMD.exe => taskmgr => terminate "Network Connection Flow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3NPilpkC8M

Did it work? Curious cats want to know.

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