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Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

This may get buried here, but there is one important distinction missing from all these articles.

Win 11 Pro allows you to enable local login, and disable all the intrusive microsoft stuff. Ive been on win 11 for the past 5 years and don't even remember my microsoft password at this point. IIRC you still have to set one up when you first install, but then once you switch to local login, any time you open up a microsoft app it makes you login in the app.

Its not a "good" solution, but given that Win11+WSL2 pretty much lets you run any software out there, its worth while doing.

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You don’t have to login with the online account. Before you install:

- Disable the network cards in the BIOS

- Install

- When prompted to setup the network press Shift+F10

- Type: start ms-cxh:localonly

- Setup the local account

- After install completes re-enable the network cards in the BIOS

Nothing could be easier. Truly the most user-friendly OS.

Microsoft is even trying to get Windows IoT / Embedded to be MS accounts vs local. The same method for disabling ease of local user accounts are being enabled there.

Windows IoT still forces all the useless trash to be installed ... such as XBox game bar. I have to spend every few months going through the means to disable this trash via the registry so it can be automated in air-gaped systems.

Original Window Embedded, pre-IoT branding, allowed full customization. Now it is near equivalent to standard desktop.

You have to pay me to use Windows OS ... even with gaming.

If you have Pro edition you don't have to do any of that.

Click "Sign in options"->Domain Join Instead

That's it, it''ll have you create a local account.

There is easier method. Set up local account during creating Win bootable install device via Rufus. During actual Win install it skips all steps about crating local account. Done.

You do not need to disable network interface cards. Just do not connect a network cable and do not connect to a wifi ssid.

You also do not need to supply a password for the new local user account. It will now automatically login and have local admin rights.

I bought a returned, "Like New" laptop for my wife. Some Lenovo, higher end consumer laptop. The onboarding process was terrible. Something like, the wifi drivers were not included. I had to create a local account to download the drivers. But there's no ethernet port. Luckily had a USB to Ethernet dongle.

I thought to myself...yeah no wonder someone returned this.

I hear you. I've had laptops where one could not even install the Windows 11 OS on using the official Windows 11 ISO on a bootable usb key, because there was this weird nvme driver required. Which required you to make an additional usb key (of modify your bootable usb key) with the weird nvme driver to load during Windows 11 setup. Luckily the top brands (HP, Dell, Lenovo) have pretty good support asssistant software for once you got Windows 11 running with internet those tools will install the rest for you.

Or don't bother with the above - install Windows 10 without an online account and just unplug the network card. Download the Win11 upgrade binary. Run the upgrade and keep clicking no to the many (but not excessive) times it suggests to create a Microsoft Account.

Time intensive, but doesn't require much knowledge or pulling hardware.

Kinda related: back on Windows 7 I did add my MS account to Credentials Manager out of pure curiosity. But there was nothing else that could be done beside storing login and password. Even Windows Live applications bundle hold login data separately from Manager.

So I removed that account but when W10 was released, it was offered during initial setup of upgraded system. Windows still stored information about that account somewhere.

And yes, there are system tools still present today in W11 that allows users to create additional local accounts beside the default one set during installation - that's mmc snap-in (terrible name) local users and groups or net user for console. But I totally get it and support: people don't want to be forced for an online account out of the box, for a local workflow.

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