Microsoft blocks all options to bypass MS Account on new Installs

WildWilly said:

Bree, I am well & truly confused. What is the purpose of all this? This is a concept that I don't think existed on W7.

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I quite understand. The concept of signing in to your PC with your Microsoft account didn't exist until Windows 8.

Just stick with your Local account, a concept that you are familiar with from Windows 7. I use local accounts for all my PCs, Windows 11 works just fine with a local account.

When you have learned more about the Pros and Cons of using a Microsoft Account, then you can make an informed choice.

But there is absolutely no need to rush into it - take as long as you want to choose (even if that means never making the switch). And don't worry about being 'certified legal', if it say 'Windows is activated with a digital licence' then you already are.

Bree, BamaInArk . . . THANK YOU!!!! I am extremely unlikely to use OneDrive, Office 365, or any other cloud service. I think you have just told me I am fretting about something that doesn't exist. I already have the equivalent of the old W7 Genuine Microsoft seal. I am actually finished with the whole thing. I've created my one administrator user & that's all I need. (Except for the emergency user, which is a good idea.) My W7 boots up & goes to the desktop directly without my having to enter a password. I was just deferring getting that done with W11. I've clearly been operating under the misconception that there was some registration step I had yet to perform. No wonder you guys have been confused. I've been talking about a step that doesn't exist. I think we are finally communicating.

In the immortal words of Emily Littella . . . never mind.

WildWilly said:

I think you have just told me I am fretting about something that doesn't exist. I already have the equivalent of the old W7 Genuine Microsoft seal.

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By Jove! I think he has got it!

Relax and enjoy your new PC.

WildWilly said:

My W7 boots up & goes to the desktop directly without my having to enter a password. I was just deferring getting that done with W11.

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The simplest way to do that is to set 'when should Windows require you to sign in again?' to Never, then set a blank password for your local account.



If you want to keep a password for your local account, then the next simplest way is Option One in this tutorial.

pparks1 said:

This is what I use and it works

1) During installation of Windows 11, you will be presented a screen that says "Let's add your Microsoft account". At this screen, enter a fake e-mail address. Note that not every fake address will work. Try using the address "nobody@nobody.com". On the next screen you will be asked for a password. Enter any fake password and then click on "Sign in". On the next screen the message "Oops, something went wrong" will be displayed. Click on "Next". On the next screen you will be able to enter a local account name. Do this and proceed with installation.

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I found the same thing where not every fake account will work. To keep it simple and easy to remember I use the following fake account:
Username: username
Password: password

BTW, I just reinstalled Windows 11 on the morning of November 11. My fake account worked just fine. I still got the message "Oops, something went wrong so I was allowed to create a local account. The only problem I had was it couldn't use my WiFi so I had to plug in an Ethernet cable. Some people use a bypass for networking but I prefer being connected because it needs to update Windows anyways. I just missed the release of the MCT with 23H2 so ended up with 22H2. No matter because I was up to 23H2 by that afternoon.

If you use a local account, you will be asked for a Microsoft account to use OneDrive, Windows Store and some store apps and games. You can either use the Microsoft account only for specific apps and games and keep using your local account to login, or convert your local account to Microsoft account (no need to create a new user). I prefer using my local account so I have configured only the games and apps I want to use my Microsoft account. I had put some websites in Microsoft Edge favorites bar for easy access while on my local account. One day I made the mistake to login to my Microsoft Account in Edge and it synced with another computer I had used my account on and rearranged these favorites! I had to move the links I wanted back to the start. So be careful when you login on an app or game with your Microsoft account. Also make sure you set the account for this app only, not convert your local account to Microsoft account.

In case you were wondering what happens if you forget your password to your Microsoft account, it is the same as using your Google account on an Android smartphone or your iCloud account on an iPhone. You have to reset the password by going through "I forgot my password" and follow the on screen instructions. BUT, if you don't want to reset the password, but still want to unlock the computer without losing data, you can boot your computer with a Windows Live USB (aka WinPE), use the appropriate utilities to convert your Microsoft Account to local account and finally remove the password of the local account. You can download Sergei Strelec's WinPE ISO from here: WinPE 10-8 Sergei Strelec English » Sergei Strelec
Use Rufus (Index of /downloads) to read the ISO and create the bootable USB flash drive. When you boot with this USB you see a list of which environment you want to load (Windows 11 or 10) and some other tools such as MemTest. Choose either Windows 11 or 10 and wait to load. Then click on the start button to see a list of tools. Go to the Password reset section. Obviously you cannot unlock a Microsoft account directly, but one of these utilities, I don't remember which, can convert the Microsoft account in to local account. Then you can proceed and change or remove the password. Of course the same utilities can unlock any local account, so keep that in mind in case you forget your password. Most would format and reinstall Windows potentially losing all their data. No need to. Just remove or change the password using Strelec.

Bree said:

When you have learned more about the Pros and Cons of using a Microsoft Account, then you can make an informed choice.

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what am I thinking right now Bree?

Marie SWE said:

what am I thinking right now Bree?

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Hmm, knowing you the polite version would be "Pros? There are none!" (I'm sure you'd express it more colourfully)

You can do the same things using a local account and login only to Windows Store and the games and apps you want with your Microsoft account. I see no point using a Microsoft Account on a PC. It is a computer, not a smartphone to bind it with an online account.

spapakons said:

You can do the same things using a local account and login only to Windows Store and the games and apps you want with your Microsoft account. I see no point using a Microsoft Account on a PC. It is a computer, not a smartphone to bind it with an online account.

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That's exactly how i do things. I can do everything I want using this method, the store, OneDrive, and Office 365 works just fine.

There is another thing that benefits from a Microsoft account login. It is Sticky Notes. I log onto it with my Microsoft account so the notes on all my computers are synchronized. Like it has been said this is separate from the Windows login because I still use a local account for it.

I use the good old Sticky Notes from Windows 7 (see Winaero website) on my main PC. I usually remotely connect to my main PC with AnyDesk and do whatever I want there. I don't need synchronized notes. At work I use an old Windows 7 computer with different notes. I don't need my notes from home. If I need to remember something I create a note at my smartphone.

Bree, I was stumbling around in W11 trying to personalize some things. I was getting annoyed with having to type in my password at every reboot. So I went into the User definition & just removed the password from there. It was a bit different from what you showed but it worked. W11 now boots straight to the desktop without stopping on the lock screen. On the other hand, the idea of W11 demanding a sign in at some later date sounds like something I should turn off. I'll have to remember to check the additional settings under Sign-In Options next time I'm fooling around with it. At least I figured out how to make the global font size larger so I don't need my reading glasses any more. That turned out to be the same thing as in W7. The trick was finding where it's located on W11. It's the percentage thing. I think it was under Making Things More Readable. It was in the Accessibility settings. I think. I'm still swapping back to W7 to do anything real. I don't have W11 to the point where I can use it as an everyday system. For one thing, I haven't connected it to the Internet yet. But things are progressing. I greatly appreciate your help here.

I understand your hesitation with Windows 11, but eventually we all have to embrace it. If you use Windows 11 once a while you will never truly familiarise yourself with it. You have to start using it every day and after a few days or a month you should be much more confident.

Oh yeah. I am committed to getting there. It's just that I'm not pressuring myself to get there fast. I'm reading a lot of tutorials on here to learn where things I know well on W7 are hiding on W11. Well, I supposed they're not hiding, but if I don't know where they are, they may as well be hiding. I'm just in the process of getting there from here. Things like keyboard shortcuts. I'm making notes. I'll get there. I'm just not there yet.

I have a number of computers that I like to share file among them. I like to have the same Username and Password for all of them. That makes it easy to access the share files and read/write files to them. Not having a password makes this harder.

BTW, in addition to a password I have a PIN. I normally use the PIN because it is faster to login.

If you download and install Winaero Tweaker, it can make some Settings to also be accessed from the good old Control Panel. Some of these may even have the same familiar interface.

I'm not sure how relevant anything I post here is to anybody else. But I'm posting in case it is helpful. I am probably not telling the experts anything they don't already know. But for non-experts like me, maybe this will help somebody some day.

I mentioned upthread that I finally completed my W11 install thanks to the Shift+F10 trick, & that I did it with no physical connection to the Internet. I've also been fooling around with things in the system to get it personalized to my taste, still without being connected to the Internet.

Tonight, I connected the machine to the Internet. It was a total failure. It said I didn't have any network drivers. I guess not being connected to the Internet skips the part of W11 install that installs network drivers.

But it wasn't a total loss. My ISP supplied me with an app that runs on my phone. I didn't have that open while I was trying unsuccessfully to get connected. But after I got back to W7 (where I am now posting this) I checked my phone & the ISP app was telling me it had recognized a new device connecting to my Internet connection. All it gave was a MAC address. But this is encouraging. It says that the hardware is working & the machine is ready to use the Internet.

But I need software. I'm rather disappointed that plug'n'play did not just pop up & say let's get drivers for you. Oh well. I deal with what I have. Back on W7 I went to the Asus web site & downloaded drivers for LAN, graphics, WiFi, Bluetooth, & audio. These are all features of my motherboard. I may or may not install the graphics driver because I actually have a separate GPU to which my monitor has been & is connected on W11. The brand is MSI NVidia. So I downloaded that driver as well, from the MSI web site. I believe this GPU also supports audio so I may not install the motherboard audio driver. But I will definitely need the WiFi & BT.

So next time I swap my computers & boot up W11, I will be installing a bunch of drivers. My feeling is this would not have been necessary if the W11 install didn't have this bug that forces you to bypass connecting to the Internet during installation. Maybe some future version of the install ISO will have this corrected. For me, that will be moot since I will be manually installing all the drivers that should have been installed during the initial install but weren't because the install is too stupid to recognize my perfectly functioning Internet connection. And in case you're wondering, the ISO I have is 23H2. It is my understanding that this one is about 1 month old so it's the very latest as of this moment. I don't envision installing again. I did have to do a repair install on W7 a couple of years ago. I hope I won't have to go through that on W11. But I'm expecting that the future will hold no requirement for me to ever get a newer install ISO than this one. So I don't give a rip if it ever gets corrected. I will be beyond the point of caring about that. I hope. I have every confidence that the drivers I've collected on W7 will get me to the next level on W11.

And how exactly am I getting the drivers from W7 to W11? I posted some details about how I constructed my install media in the discussion below this tutorial:


I am using the USB SSD I mention there to carry stuff from W7 to W11.

If you have access to another PC, simply download the drivers from there. You can also make your mobile phone share its cellular internet connection via USB. Connect the phone with the computer and then go at the Network settings (on the phone) and select to share the connection via USB. Sorry, I cannot guide you exactly, each manufacturer uses different terminology for the same thing and also has different way to reach each setting. This will allow your PC to connect using your mobile's data. To avoid consuming too much data, simply download only the LAN driver. Once you install it and you have internet access via LAN you can then download the rest drivers. As you said, you won't need the onboard Intel graphics drivers since you have a separate nVidia card. I would skip MSI site since the driver there might be outdated. I would go straight to www.nvidia.com and download the latest driver appropriate for my model (such as my GTX 1050).

Thanks for your interest, Spapakons.

I do have 2 computers: my old W7 system that I continue to use, this W11 system that I'm trying to get working. The problem is that I have only 1 monitor & 1 keyboard. I know there are such things as KVMs but I don't have one. I don't envision needing one, either, because I intend to have just the one computer. In addition, due to the geography of things here, I physically don't have room to run both computers at the same time. I'm not sure I could even do the USB sharing thing with my phone since the W11 system seems to be missing all these drivers. What I have done will work fine. I downloaded the drivers onto the W7 system. I copied them to my external USB SSD. When I boot up W11, I will just plug in the USB SSD & voilà, I'll have the drivers on the W11 system. Pretty simple.

Once I'm set up, I will be able to use the Windows compatibility feature of the phone to share files between the phone & the PC. I looked into that a while ago but the tool in the phone requires something newer than W7, so I've never used it. But I expect to get to that eventually. First I need to put all these drivers on the W11 box.

As for the NVidia driver, I have some experience with that on W7. They've got this "NVidia Experience" thing. That's what I downloaded. So I don't think I have the drivers themselves yet. I've got their app that detects the GPU, then goes to their site to get the right drivers. So I'm not worried about getting the latest version.