Whack-a-mole continues.
Microsoft really, really, REALLY wants you to use a Microsoft account for Windows 11 — so much so that they make it difficult to set Windows 11 up without one. Apparently they are quashing all the workarounds we’ve come up with in recent months and years to do it anyway.
People choose local accounts for a variety of reasons, from not being continuously connected to not seeing a need to keep that extra connection to Microsoft for personal or privacy reasons.
So, we have another workaround. It’s obscure and perhaps esoteric, but as of this writing, it works.
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Windows 11 without a Microsoft account
Microsoft really wants you to use an account for Windows 11. Here’s a workaround: Start setup with no internet. When asked to connect, press SHIFT+F10 and type ‘start ms-cxh:localonly’. Create a local account instead. Connect to the internet after setup is finished.
Setting up Windows from scratch
This applies to a fresh installation of Windows 11. That typically means booting from installation media (which you can download from Microsoft) and running the setup program.
If you’ve already set up Windows 11 with a Microsoft account, it’s kind of too late. You can switch to using a local account, but that’s not quite the same as never having associated the machine with a Microsoft account in the first place.
What we’re doing here is starting from scratch.
Let’s connect you to a network
Before you boot from the installation media, disconnect your computer from the internet. We’ll leave it completely disconnected until Windows 11 has been set up.
Boot from the installation media, and begin the setup process. Proceed normally, including having it reboot once or twice along the way.
Stop when you get to this screen.
As you can see, this machine is not connected to a network. If we were to connect, Windows 11 setup would proceed with the Microsoft account setup.
Instead, type SHIFT+F101 to open a command prompt window.
Click anywhere within the command prompt window and type the following command:
start ms-cxh:localonly
followed by the Enter key.
This is the interface to create a local account. Enter a local account username (“leon” in my example above), create and enter a password twice, set up answers to a few security questions, and it’s done.
Complete the rest of Windows 11 setup normally.
Then connect to the network
Once setup is complete, you’ll be dropped into Windows 11 with the Start menu showing.
Note that many of the icons for Start Menu items are grey. This is because they will be downloaded from the internet, and we’re not connected.
Connect your computer to the internet. Plug in that cable or set up Wi-Fi. As soon as you do, you’ll see the icons magically refreshed with their proper appearance.
At this point, you might also want to visit Windows Update in Settings. A normal, connected setup of Windows 11 would have downloaded updates along the way, but since we were not connected until now, you should find many available to be installed.2
Do this
As I mentioned, people choose local accounts for a variety of reasons, from not being continuously online to not seeing a need for that extra tie to Microsoft for personal or privacy reasons. You can make this choice from the start with Windows 11… at least until Microsoft steps on this work-around.
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Footnotes & References
1: I sometimes take the extra step of clicking on an empty area in that dialog — perhaps the big Wi-Fi graphic — to ensure that the correct window is receiving the keystroke. I’ve heard of SHIFT+F10 not working in some cases and think it might be related.
2: Even if it says the computer is up to date, click on “Check for updates”. There are likely to be many.
Another good topic would be, How to remove the Microsoft account used in setting-up the Windows 11 computer, from this computer.
Once set up, can you still create a local account and give it Admin privileges? I’m thinking about those email addresses we create for signing up for online services that are separate from our real email. Could you set up Windows using a Microsoft account connected to an alternative email address and once set up create your real user account as a local account and make this local account and administrator?