this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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I have never used a Windows machine with a Microsoft account for my own personal use, only if it was somebody else's PC that already had it. I just keep it disconnected from the internet during setup and it eventually gives me the option to not use it with a Microsoft account.
There is a command to disable the account setup too but I have only used that once. The disconnecting from the internet trick works for me.
I mostly use GNU/Linux for my own use but on the rare occasion I setup Windows for someone else or need to use it, I just disconnect it / don't connect it to the internet before setup.
Pretty sure they blocked that no internet option too, though Rufus has a checkbox to re-enable it.
I just installed Windows 11 not too long ago (maybe 4 months ago) on a computer and it worked without even using the command to bypass it I am pretty sure. I didn't use Rufus or any special option to disable it prior to writing it to the flash drive. All I did was disconnect an ethernet cable and install and at some point it just gave me the option to bypass the creation of a Microsoft account. I remember there used to be a special username and password you could use that would bypass it too but I didn't use that as far as I can remember. I may have possibly tried entering random info until it failed enough times that it allowed me to do it but I'm not sure.
Idk why my experience is different from what some others are reporting. I am pretty sure I didn't have to put the command in or do anything too special other than disconnecting from the internet and maybe possibly trying a couple of times to login till it failed multiple times but I don't remember if I did that. Obviously since it would have been disconnected from the internet logins to a Microsoft account would not work anyway but it might have still asked me but I just remember at some point it just gave me the option to create a local only account.
I used Windows 11 Pro.
I didn't put in a product key when I installed idk if that would have made a difference but that's one aspect I can think of that might be possibly different from some people's installs so I figured I would at least mention that even if it possibly makes no difference. I know Windows can read the product key from the motherboard but in my case I installed it one of my computers that was bought from a linux hardware vendor so it would not have come with anything like that. (I know blasphemy hehe but I needed Windows for something Windows specific that has anti virtual machine detection too and many of the computers in my house are from linux hardware companies to support the linux ecosystem).
Edit : So someone said that if you use Windows 11 Pro there is a way to use an option for setting up for work and a domain that it will prompt you to create a local account. Maybe that is what I ended up doing that made the difference that made it so easy to bypass the Microsoft account.