The workarounds people come up with to not make an MS account seem crazy to me. What difference does it really make if its a local account or not? You are still using windows so clearly you are ok with everything else, but the account is too much?
Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without an online account
Submitted 5 months ago by ardi60@reddthat.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/news/793579/microsoft-windows-11-local-account-bypass-workaround-changes
Comments
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I shouldn’t need to have an internet connection to login to my desktop.
yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
I don’t have a personal Microsoft account, and have no desire to create one more account, but am required by my organisation to use 1 Windows-only software for 2 hours every week. As such, I run that in a Windows VM on my computer, and this doesn’t seem like it’d be worth the effort of making a MS account
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 months ago
Well, at least in 10, the username is something dumb and you can’t change it during creation (or everywhere easily after creation) when doing an online account. But linking after you create your account let you set it to whatever. So there may be people who are fine with online accounts but just want to set their usernames to whatever.
n1ck_n4m3@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Using a Microsoft cloud account to log into my local computer means Microsoft owns credentials to a device in my house, and if they get hacked (which they do, all the fucking time), my device is less secure because of it and my data is less secure because of it.
There’s absolutely no need for my copy of Windows to require me to login using a cloud-based account.
You can use all manner of apps to disable the telemetry and privacy nonsense that people have issues with Windows about (and I similarly find Microsoft’s privacy-last approach to be tedious), but if your computer requires you to use a cloud account to log in, then your computer is susceptible to that cloud account being hijacked or hacked and Microsoft has given absolutely no good reason for this to be the case.
Logging in to a Microsoft account doesn’t provide any real benefit to the user at all, the best you can say is that you’re not prompted to log in again if you run the Microsoft Store or the Xbox app, and that’s not a compelling benefit.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 5 months ago
At this point they’ll restrict access to the registry.
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
i wonder if they could make a read-only config partition like with macos
m3t00@lemmy.world 5 months ago
upgraded to 11 for free from win2k? dual boot linux and just running updates and rebooting the win11 every few months. paid $100 for win2k a long time ago. stupid giant passkey license, no thanks. got a free account and switched to digital at some point.
toynbee@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Is this what they mean when they say “steam of consciousness”?
Boozilla@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Do custom installation (ISO) creation utilities like NTLite still allow you to remove the requirement?
VITecNet@programming.dev 5 months ago
I’m going to give Google money by buying a Pixel to free myself from Google…
boogiebored@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Lol it’s been great getting off of Windows over the last few months.
I thought I would miss it, but Proton in Steam has been amazing on Ubuntu, with some exceptions (Stupid EA crap from skate. 2025).
Dual booting for now is OK, but gaming is pretty garbage anyway, so I will probably abandon Windows entirely soon. Definitely my last version of it. Feel so liberated having hobbies off computer anyway, and now using my computers with Ubuntu is actually enjoyable again instead of driving an expensive spy machine.
:)
timhayes1991@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
I had no clue skate didn’t work for Linux until I went to play it :'( it was installed and everything. Bummer.
boogiebored@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It shows as installable on Ubuntu in Steam, so I hilariously found out after installing Ubuntu and skate on my gf’s computer only to not be able to play it 😆
FreeMindFreeAss@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Linux, your time has finally come
skisnow@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
All Microsoft had to do to remain the most popular home and office OS in the world for decades to come, was to just not fucking suck.
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 5 months ago
The problem is that they realized that they could do both.
FreeMindFreeAss@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Woahwoahwoah, let’s not be unrealistic here.
But honestly I’m happy for the final push to Linux. I’ve been telling myself to make the change for a few years now but what’s happening with AI training and side-loading / complete loss of privacy / general horrible vibes in the closed-source tech-sector… Linux it is. I’m even ready for the learning curve. I grew up on dos, I’m sure I can find my way around it.
betanumerus@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Well I paid for what I have, and no one is aloud to rob me of what I pay for so I’m good. Sorry Microsoft you don’t get to rob people any more than the rest of us. All it would do is send people elsewhere.
Kissaki@feddit.org 5 months ago
Where’s the regulation that prevents this? Appalling.
DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 5 months ago
In the US? Basically nonexistent.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
I am horrified by what computers have become, from expensive magical tools to solve real problems, to ubiquitous shit-shoveling malware appliances controlled by some of the worst elements of society.
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space 5 months ago
monotremata@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
🎶 The dream of the 90’s is alive in Linux🎶
bless@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
and still expensive
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Those kinds of computers still exist, it’s called Linux.
tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I’ve never been more appreciative than I am now of the decades of effort that have gone into building this free and open-source operating system.
Imagine if we were here in 2025, with all the incumbent operating systems going to shit, but in a world where Linux didn’t exist and there was no alternative that wasn’t owned by a tech giant.
I don’t even want to imagine.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
This “subscription” mentality is ruining value for a lot of society but, holy shit, do you ever rake in those huge amounts of monthly cash, for very little work.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 5 months ago
It’s not our mentality, it’s their strategy.
Wars breed new strategies.
Sometimes it’s free trade as a carrot and embargo as a stick, like with, well, one can try to nail it to Napoleonic wars, but as old as life. Sometimes it’s mass production and standardization and ergonomics and scientific industrial design, one can try to nail these to WWII, but also as old as life. And sometimes it’s controlled escalation as a way to reach your goals without triggering nuclear response, which one can nail to the Cold War.
American strategy of the Cold War is being used against world markets, ladies and gentlemen. Together with the previous two strategies mentioned.
The Soviet one was the opposite, to try to make even the smallest transgression cause firmly the same response, so that controlled escalation wouldn’t work, but unfortunately one is founded in human psychology (plus game theory) and the other in rational knowledge (just game theory), the latter always loses. It was called scientific-technical revolution and meant literally its name - instead of gradual escalation, which favors the stronger side, you should create technical means to punch a fatal wound, nothing gradual.
So - the subscriptions themselves matter very little, they are just slowly transitioning everything big to dependence upon remote components available over the Internet.
It’s funny, actually, so much gradual work, and in the end it’ll be just wasted time - even making computers is not magic. State of the art processes could as well be that for most of humanity, but for many purposes Pentium MMX is a good enough computer, and such are not magic.
And especially making computer software of the kind that’s being “metropolized” like this is not magic. Most of it is complex simply because of legacy, backwards compatibility and as a barrier for competitors making alternative implementations.
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
I am never abandoning you, Linux
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I installed windows 11 a dozen time at work (never at home) and I just click on “domain login”, it just creates a local account and then after the install I have to manually join the domain. No Microsoft account enforcement at all.
It’s regular Windows 11, not Enterprise, we are a small company.
But I’m wondering, this bypass is too easy, is it because it sees that the DNS server is also an active directory server, so it allows that, or the trick is that you tell him you want to join a domain?
Or maybe it’s a domain enrollment bug because we’re using samba 4 under Debian as active directory server and not Windows server/entra id/whatever they call it this month?
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I just click on “domain login”
It’s regular Windows 11, not Enterprise
You need to have 11 Pro or better to domain join a computer.
Your computer would also need to be joined to your domain to allow the login, so there is definitely some config going on that is not available to the typical home user.
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
I don’t know why it was so easy for you, but the last four Windows 11 machines I set up over the last two years definitely required increasingly complicated hacks just to not create an online account.
purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 5 months ago
I don’t think they ever said they plan to require it for Windows Pro or above skus. It’s only home (you know the one business shouldn’t be using anyway) that they said they wanted to enforce it on.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
They actually did a lot of mess with Pro as well. There has been a “watering down” of Pro since Windows 10 to make sure that they can still do their anticonsumer crap to users. I imagine they also are trying to push businesses to get Enterprise instead of picking up relatively easy/inexpensive Pro licenses.
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 5 months ago
Is this about Windows Home edition? I don’t need to do anything hacky to get a local account but I also don’t use Home edition.
FireWire400@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Use Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC, problem solved
Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 5 months ago
just use that one thing that works right now
He said in response to an article about how they are perpetually reducing the amount of things that work right now
FireWire400@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I doubt they’ll risk alienating their enterprise costumers, but sure, they could make IoT account-only.
In that case just switch to Linux already.
richardmtanguay@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
I will be switching to Linux once my laptop is obsolete!!! I will only be getting Linux stuff from there on in!!! :-)
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
You’re going to immediately wonder why you waited so long.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
I’m waiting for actual fire to start in my laptop before switching. I’ve had to do so many tricks to keep Win 7 going that I’m invested in keeping this thing going as long as possible. Plus all my porn is on it.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Why wait? Linux Mint will run the shit out of your laptop right now.
Jaysyn@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Not OP, but I have to keep one Windows PC around. My favorite mod for my favorite 20 year old 4x game will not run on Linux, even though the game itself will.
The rest of my PCs are running either Mint or Xubuntu.
atmorous@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Try Pop OS Cosmic (Like MacOS) and Linux Mint Cinnamon (Like Windows) they are both amazing. They are both customizable to look however you want too
1984@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Im running cosmic desktop on arch, its actually very good! I have enabled automatic tiling of windows and its just super convenient. Like a tiling window manager but with all the stuff most people want built-in (top bar, notifications, screenshots, screen sharing etc).
You cant customize it as much as a real tiling window manager but if all you want is for your windows to tile, its awesome.
Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
I can add that in my experience, switching to Linux tends to have a positive impact on performance and keep the laptop usable for longer, I highly recommend you try it with your current laptop.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I’ve got machines that are obsolete for even Windows 10 that run Linux just fine. The best time to start is now.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
If you have a drive where you can back up your stuff before installing a new OS, there’s no need to wait.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
I despise that I have to use this OS at work. I would never run windows on my own computer again. Its just insanity. Next they’ll require a credit card to make a Microsoft account.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 months ago
its on our work computers, i believe windows 11 with all the BLOAT too.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
I could see them requiring government-issued ID. The age verification laws coming into effect in various states and countries make this a logical step for Microsoft. They might even start their own age verification service where you give them your ID and they vouch for your age with the sites you visit in Edge. Of course it has the totally accidental side effect that everything you do on your computer can be monitored and legally tied to your identity.
1984@lemmy.today 5 months ago
The only thing you should give Microsoft is the finger.
Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 5 months ago
At this point I just
net user addit, which just creates the user manually and then you can reboot and just log into it.It’s not like you need anything from the OOBE at all, so might as well just skip it entirely.
kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
I decided to make a customs iso. Not too difficult to do. Just add a unattended.xml file and boot and be done.
BurgerBaron@piefed.social 5 months ago
Germans got us covered:
ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 5 months ago
Switched to Linux full time at the start of 2025 and haven’t looked back. I fully intend to go the rest of my life without using windows again.
aurelar@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
I’ve been using Linux exclusively for more than ten years. You’ve made the right choice. As if you needed anyone to tell you 😆
oppy1984@lemdro.id 5 months ago
Same, I made the switch about 9 years ago when I was self-employed. Then I took a job with a small company running windows and it sucked. Now I’m 6 years in with my current, a mega corp, and they are all in on Microsoft. I’ve been so aggravated with the limitations of Microsoft products when I could get things done with a FOSS product in no time. Of course IT blocks FOSS installs because of corporate policy…🤬
Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
“It would bypass critical steps…”
Which step is that, data collection? Shoving OneDrive down my throat by putting my Desktop in it with no way to easily remove it?
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 months ago
collecting data, and training AI of course.
Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Glad I found one and used it. If I didn’t need Windows for my classes, I’d be on Linux already.
dubyakay@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
What classes require windows? You can run most things in Linux. And for the cases where my classes had instructions on how to set up something on Windows, for Linux and MacOS they just had a foot note saying “You are on your own”.
Quexotic@infosec.pub 5 months ago
So I guess Lennox phone and Linux computer as well
twinklefruit@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Lol.
I remember having to disable internet when installing windows 10 so I’m not forced to make a micro$hit account.
They really don’t care at all about users. It’s all about abuse at this point.
shalafi@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Had to do that with Doom III in 2004. Old news.
It’s not really a big deal, unless you’re used to the freedom of Linux, which comes with it’s own issues. If M$ ever truly forces me into a corner, I’m out. And they won’t. Like Adobe allowing low-key piracy, they know they need the vast user base to remain relevant.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
it is a big deal, because they are deceiving and taking advantage of so many people
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Doesn’t stop em from using Windows 11 as much as I want.
Which is none.
goatinspace@feddit.org 5 months ago
Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 months ago
The hole they will never plug: Not using Windows.
Feyd@programming.dev 5 months ago
“While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use.”
Lol sure. If that was the real reason they’d simply let you create a local account. The audacious lying is just insulting.
Reality_Suit@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Dump windows. These megacorps need to fail.
starblursd@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
ChrisTitusTech’s latest video on it… You’re welcome. He has a curl you can use at any point in the installer to bypass the whole thing and land on desktop in a local account named admin