Microsoft has blocked the bypass that allowed you to create a local account during Windows 11 setup by typing in a blocked email address
a@a.com is redundant but Shift + F10 OOBE/BYPASSNRO comes to the rescue.
Linux keeps winning by doing nothing.
Yep, I will switch to Linux before I get another OS from Microsoft. Once 10 goes away, I jump onto a Linux distribution and use Proton.
I was hoping for a Steam Created distribution to come out, but I've been waiting for that for years. I'm just too lazy to switch over before I have to.
Try Bazzite
Steam has Steam OS, but experiments on my classmate showed it wasn't user-friendly outside of Steam.
I would seriously recommend at least loading up a partition with Linux. Its a steep learning curve from Windows.
Research distributions now, don't wait until the last second and possibly screw yourself over.
It'll win when it has the desktop market share that Windows or (or Mac) does.
Brazenly forcing anti-consumer features like this is an obvious sign of monopoly and abuse of their dominating position on the market. They should have been broken up a long time ago along with all the other big tech companies who have been pulling this sort of crap.
They were convicted of being a monopoly over 20 years ago.
I remember when it happened. Back then we were concerned about how Microsoft was pushing Internet Explorer as a browser on its platform. And then we just gave up on enforcing Antitrust laws let them do whatever they want along with the rest of big tech. Since then they've been doing so much worse than that.
You can blame lobbying for that.
Don't connect to the internet.
Open a cmd window with F10 (maybe it's shift-F10?) and type the following:
OOBE\\BYPASSNRO
You can thank me later.
Why... Why does anyone have to do this bullshit? Leave windows l, everyone for the love of everything good, leave windows!
Lol, right. Linux ain't even close to replacing windows - just look at the gaming issues that persist, or other compatibility issues.
It's great for specific use-case scenarios, but I'm not dealing with supporting friends and family when stuff doesn't work because I told them to install a Linux distro.
Besides, business doesn't have this issue - it's only on home (not Pro) installs, because for business we do all sorts of system management that would preclude this, even is MS tried to push it.
This just reflects how MS sees home users - there's no profit there (never has been, it's always been about getting people used to Windows at home, to capture the audience).
No one in my family is allowed to use Windows Home versions. They either buy pro when they get a new computer, or I get it for them.
My standard response to "just go Linux" :
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it's still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I'd stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won't even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn't compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let's look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that's just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying "you should manage data in a proper database app". No, I'm not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That's just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn't realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.
Now there's that print monitor that's on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking... Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn't say "save creds"? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won't even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of windows since 2000, at the least, and would probably work on Win95.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I've installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it's gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn't look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works.... only it doesn't save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically.. but that doesn't work, so now I can't boot.. so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that... then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution... wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it's been four hours, it's 3:00am and I'm like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren't supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can't wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can't do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I've loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM's on Linux (Proxmox) because that's better than running Linux VM's of a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn't even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it's own way), and that's a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would've had a chance to beat MS, even then it would've required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980's to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
I develop software that has a Windows version, I need a Windows installation to test it.
Sounds so much like a abusive relationship for a reason.
I've been happy on FOSS desktop OSs for home for nearly 20 years and work 12 years. It's certainly possible to leave. Windows wasn't my first OS, RISC OS was, so I already I could be treated better.
You don't have to put up with it! Windows will take all it can from you and give as little as it can.
I thought we couldn't use Linux because people don't want to use a command prompt.
Funny thing is, I find myself forced to use the command prompt more in Windows than I do the terminal in Linux. And don't get me started on the absolute nightmare that the windows registry is.
5 days too late; was setting up a new PC for a 10 year old, and we had to jump through all the hoops in the world in the terrible microS. family thing just so a kid can play minecraft bedrock edition.
Yeah that Minecraft setup is ridiculous now, then you get ads.
You need a Microsoft account to play Minecraft anyway, so you still would have had set one up.
Guck you. I’ll thank you NOW.
This is the way.
Windows users should be outraged.
We're at a point where a company makes an operating system used by a majority of the population while they force you to use your personal online account to log in, and they record everything you do on screen and collect an obscene amount of other information about you.
Picture MS getting breached in a couple years. What would that look like for you, the individual? Do you really trust all these screenshots are also locally stored? I doubt it. If they are today, do you trust they always will be?
Before this is all over, MS will be charging users to extract their snapshots from a proprietary cloud-only one drive account. The recovery process will take about 3 hours, and involve scrolling through ai-authored help articles that don't lay out clearly and methodically how to access the old snapshots. The comments on the help articles will begin with "Hello sir, can you confirm that you have followed the steps at this link?". The link, before delivering you to an irrelevant solution, will shunt you to a landing page that forces you to log into your microsoft account before you can see the answer.
I almost want to kill myself reading this
I can't help but feel the individual direct consequences to be like pretty small to the institutional risks.
Imagine China all of a sudden getting access to all the trade secrets of US companies that still ran MS. Imagine Russia gaining full access to all the government, health, educational data of every single US citizen. Or imagine something like the recent fuckup of google deleting the entire cloud of one financial institutions. Imagine MS to fuck up royally and all consumer facing computers in all banks to be broken for three weeks...
All of these are not immediately targeting the individual directly, but they can be extremely destructive to a nation or even globally as a whole.
ai can now parse and sort through that data. cambridge analytica has the potential of looking like kid's play. who knows what they will be able to do with us.
Absolutely, however I think there is indifference or complacency in lay tech users. It might help open a few eyes if shown effects in peoples personal lives. For example, asking have you been getting obscene number of spam/robo-calls? That's because your info was either stolen or sold by the company's you shared it with. That would make the effect hit home better I think.
I remember when there was news that Facebook was listening to your conversations and suggesting ads when you logged in. Even if untrue it creeped people out, some even quitting Facebook entirely. Maybe something like that can happen with MS and they back off. Or better yet we legislate the shit out of tech companies, follow the EU way.
We're at a point where a company makes an operating system used by a majority of the population while they force you to use your personal online account to log in
I find it hilarious to see how many people rage at this from their iPhone or Android phone where they are logged in with a personal online account in order for the device to function.
Yeah this is a fair point. Not a fan of that either.
For anyone who has to install Windows 11; download the full ISO then use Rufus. You'll be able to disable some of the enshittification.
...For now.
Exactly. At any point and update can brick the install. If I wanted an OS that can brick itself just by updating, I would use arch.
Signed: a Bazzite user
Ventoy > Rufus and also bypasses them by default.
I got a message on my computer, Win10, saying my computer wasn't capable of being upgraded to Win11, but it would be protected by updates until October? 2025. Nice of them to give me a reminder to switch to Linux.
Congrats in building stalking software right into the OS.
A bunch of abusive relationships about to get a whole lot worse when the other party can track literally everything they do.
Fuck you, MS, for making people create an account to use something they paid for.
So stick it to them, stop giving them money and data.
Louder for the people at the back!
And also at the front, and also in the middle.
Friggin’ 73.91% desktop market share. 1.6 billion…
The enshitification intensifies; the rate appears to have become exponential. This one is a deal breaker for me. I want to buy or use an OS that is my OS. I do not want any login beyond what I deem necessary for security purposes. Everything you and the software that runs on your computer does is loggable at the OS level. I don't want an email address bound to all that. Fuck Microsoft.
I can’t reveal too much but MS’s long game is to have everyone sign up for a Live account. They want to do what Apple did with Apple ID and iCloud, making every customer sign up for one. Expect more of this.
And this sort of thing is the prelude to them finally pulling off their "OS as a service" scheme and I guarantee you in a couple of years they will try to float a monthly subscription just to use Windows, tied to your M$ account.
Pretty much. The thing is it’s done sooooo poorly. Like beyond hot trash. They are also bringing it to all their games, PC, mobile, what have you. It’ll get much worse just wait.
The announcement of the AI recall thing was enough to stop me from ever buying another Windows device. Best wishes for your job, though!
I left last year lol. I read the writing on the wall 😁
You can make local accounts on MacOS still.
I've had a mac for years and still haven't had any need for an iCloud account. It's optional
This is just for Home edition, yeah? Pretty sure Professional still allows you to create offline accounts without a Microsoft account before joining a domain.
Last time I tried it let me create a local account, then about a week later I got called because Windows threw a full-screen blocker on boot saying a Microsoft account was required to continue with "I'll do it later" being greyed out. Oddly enough, ALT+F4 worked to close it and continue.
Ahah, no, I installed Professional edition a couple of months ago and I needed to do the OOBE/something-somethinNO to proceed with the install
Intel network card also helped because it didn't work out of the box and I really had no internal other than mobile
I tried not too long ago and had issues. I don't know if they hid it somewhere else, or removed it, but I ended up installing using a different method.
before joining a domain.
You do it essentially while joining the domain. If you hit the "work" option instead of "home" it immediately goes to a "sign into your domain" screen.
Huh? What if you're installing windows on a machine with no internet connection? Which is an entirely normal legitimate thing to do. It's not a requirement after all.
I have a number of machines that use a local account, they don't need a Microsoft account and will never be linked to one, it's unnecessary.
I had to do exactly this for a family friend in his 70s, it was a fucking nightmare. I think ultimately I caved and hotspotted it to my phone just long enough for it to be happy, and disconnected it while it was still loading the sign up page so it fell back to local account creation (at the time I didn't know about a@a or bypassnro)
There's this workaround that works well : https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account
It's definitely not for lambda users and a real pity that we have to resort to this, but it does the job (for now).
For W10 you can still do offline installs with the media creation tool and telling it you dont have an internet connection, for W11 even enterprise users are all tied into autopilot, Intune MDM, and/or a microsoft account. I do not believe there is a method to install W11 without an internet connection and account. If there some some way to get the install tools to do that, I dont know what it is, and I do IT for a job...
Honestly, making the switch to linux full time is not that bad. Every tool, utility and program other than the most niche propriatary applications have a FOSS variant, and it is starting to sound like a bad relationship when people wait for MS to make a policy, change or product that isnt comedicly evil...
Just break up... If you need to talk at the hivemind of the internet for advice, we got ya.
You can use shift+f10 and type OOBE\\BYPASSNRO
W11 even enterprise users are all tied into autopilot, Intune MDM, and/or a microsoft account
The "win 11 business editions 23h2" iso that I got from visualstudio.com yesterday, did no more than the usual amount of crap to make it difficult to find the "join a domain instead", allowing me to make a local user.
They have an official workaround(which is just a stupid complicated way but that's still working). The one from OP is just a custom workaround some random found. Others pointed to the actual workaround in the comments.
Time for Linux. I don't like to change, I've used windows from 3.1. But I see no other option. They will pull the plug on 10 while at the same time are trying their best to make their shitty 11 even worse.
stuck on decrappified windows for the immediate future.
Windows is malware Jfc
Linux Linux Linux
Can you still skip connecting to internet?
Don't connect to internet, Shift f10 to bring up command prompt, oobe/bypassnro, wait for restart, click I don't have internet, make local account. Did it today.
The fact this is even necessary makes me want to shit a brick.
"Do you want to make an online account?" No. "Okay, please set up your local account."
That should be it. And honestly, even that's egregious to me. Signing into online bullshit should be opt-in, not opt-out. Thank goodness I don't use Windows anymore, finally wiped the last Windows machine in my house this past week.
Damn windows seems really complicated.
You can also just select the "for work or school" option, then it lets you make a local account because it assumes you will domain join it later, which you dont need to do.
They're really trying their best to make windows as unfriendly as possible, pretty annoying when they've already been paid, bunch of pricks
So glad I'm a Linux user..
Airplane mode. Don't connect to internet
Glad I use Arch.
Many years of windows. No longer my problems.
I use Arch too btw
I'm joyed to use Gentoo
Nothing new.
How is seemingly everybody blind to the actual workaround but "knows" about a supposed "bypass" email??
Actual solution/workaround: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/all/set-up-windows-11-without-internet-oobebypassnro/4fc44554-b416-4ecb-8961-6f79fd55ae0f
It won't be long before they block that too. I really wouldn't put it past them to just say "Fuck it, no internet, no computer."
I have and use a Microsoft account. I would always setup my computer offline because I don't want my home folder to be called "myema"il@email.com
Seriously who thought that was a good idea? Your account literally has your name tied to it, call it that!
I just checked with a bunch of corporate entities and they ALL agree this was a great idea so it seems you are the odd one out that thinks it's not a good idea perhaps.
OOBE\BYPASSNRO FTW
U can just open cmd and run a command or Evan better use tiny11 and the activator program that way u dont even need to pay the assholes
People really be out here preloading their computer with viruses to get around Microsoft's latest bullshit instead of just using Linux, we ain't never gonna have the Year of the Linux Desktop
Yeah I forgot the exact process but I just used cmd and got around this when I built my current machine a couple years ago
Wow.. it's like Microsoft really does want to lose customers. Welp.. I guess I have to find a linux distro as my main driver. Ubuntu seems so damn user friendly and "mainstream" I might just stick to that. I'd play around with ArchLinux or Fedora, but fkin lol at a noob trying to setup either one through terminal/commands.
That’s the thing, they have such a monopoly, they are sort of impervious to losing customers. That trope is long dead. The belief that a mega corp can be dethroned thru sales hasn’t been a thing for nearly 20 years. MS has a monopoly on personal computers. The only they don’t control is mobile (and likely never will). But when it comes to desktop and laptops, they are untouchable.
they have such a monopoly
The major weakness in their desktop OS market dominance isn't from other desktop OSes. MacOS, ChromeOS, and traditional desktop Linux distros prevent Windows from being a total monopoly, but there's no doubt that Windows has quite a bit of market power.
The real competitive threat to Windows is from people who decide to not use a desktop computer at all. Between tablets and phones, there are a lot of people who no longer feel the need to have a laptop or desktop at all, for personal use.
And on that front, Windows being shittier than phones and tablets will cause people to slow down their upgrade cycle and maybe avoid using a traditional personal computer at all.
If you haven't found one you like yet, consider trying Debian. It's basically the same as Ubuntu, everything works the same on Debian as in Ubuntu but it's better because of less bloat.
Due to a slower update schedule, it may be worse at steam proton gaming than arch or something with a rolling release because that stuff heavily depends on how up to date your mesa or Nvidia drivers are. I can play everything except Starfield on my Ubuntu 22.04 laptop pretty much.
You set up Fedora desktop distros with a GUI installer.
Wow, exactly the feature I wanted. An account that Microsoft can link its spyware too. I'm sure that database won't be sold or stolen.
So am i missing something (yes well definitely but still)? You need an online account to login to windows. So if im somewhere where there is no internet i just cant login to my w11 laptop? I cant use my laptop.. wow. I havent touched windows in a long time but still. Thats gotta be nice for ppl that are always on the road for work. Damn.
This is about the setup process
I can say that in the case of enterprise windows setups, the system caches your login credentials if it can't reach the domain controller, so that you can still log in even if you're not on the corporate network. I imagine it does similar for windows accounts (but I never use one so I can't say for sure).
Don't mind me. Just setting up a Windows 10 torrent to download while I'm at work.
Christ I am sick of Win11.
If you can, disable TPM in the bios so it doesn't just automatically update to windows 11, because it will try.
I did this on Windows 10 not because I didn't want my Microsoft account linked but because I wanted my username to by my first name and not like part of my first and part of my last name.
I feel like recreating my account as a local one for this reason. I hate not having control over the filesystem and hate not having a normal looking username
For real, I've been less annoyed with some of the usernames work has given me than the shit Windows 10 thought was a good idea.
They work fast dont they? How long has this loophole existed in windows 10?
Well there's some dude out there that recompiled windows 11 with some shitty laptop, cigarettes in his hand, & some beer into useful windows & lighter
Damn you Microshaft!!!!
for my main computer, sure, fine, whatever. I'll sign into my Microsoft account, I don't mind. but my Plex/Minecraft server... maaaaaaannnn come the fuck on. I guess my server can just stay windows 10 for the next 20 years 🤷🏻♂️
Why in God's name are you running either of those things on windows?
We noticed this a few months back. There are still other workarounds.
Does Rufus installer still give the option to bypass all this BS when flashing a windows ISO to a USB?
Better. And it doesnt even require a modified wim:
During OOBE setup: Shift +F10
then input OOBE\BYPASSNRO
not yet, maybe they'll add it?
Windows is unusable without Rufus. So glad I used it.
/me listening to the sound of a WinXP virtual machine booting under Debian Linux
They can shoot their foot with a grenade launcher next. I'm already out of range.
You can still bypass it by checking an option when using Rufus with the win11 iso
Ive had microsloth blocked for 3 years so they can jam all the jumpers they want
I guess that you still can unplug your lan cable and create a local account?
Nope, you have to do the bypass
This post specifically says you can't (without the bypass many won't understand how to do).
That's what worked for me the other week.
So Microsoft is essentially doing what Google and Apple have been doing for years and we think Microsoft are anti consumer because of this?
Who said google and apple aren't anti-consumer?
I think an email address is required to access their respective app stores, but is it actually required for creating an account?
No, you don't need an Apple ID to setup an Apple laptop or other iDevice.
You’ve never needed AppleID to setup a Mac. I’m not positive, but I don’t think you even meed one on iPhone, though no App Store access limits the utility there.
Yes