How to Use a Local Account During Windows 11 22H2 Clean Install

[Purgatory]

How to Use a Local Account During Windows 11 22H2 Clean Install​

Microsoft is finding more genius ways to prevent you from creating an offline (local) account for your Windows 11 PC, with the latest Windows 11 22H2 setup completely missing the option to use a local account, forcing you to either use a Microsoft account, or create one if you lack it. The side-effect of forcing you to either use or create an online account, is that you can no longer clean-install Windows without an active Internet connection. "julianxhokaxhiu" on GitHub Gist found a simple method to bypass this. According to a new method discovered by them, you simply let Windows 11 22H2 setup present you with the screen where it asks for an e-mail address (of your Microsoft account); and enter "[email protected]" with "test" as the password. Let setup fail the login, and click on "next." That's it. Windows setup will proceed without needing an active Internet connection, and you can create a local account.

 

[Tee Hee Johnson]

I simply disabled wifi when doing it on a laptop recently.

 

[Rroff]

Though personally I don't bother with a local account any more they seriously need to fire the people working on Windows 10/11...

 

[Django x2]

This only applies to Home right? Pro and Enterprise you just click the "nah mate, I'm good" button and carry on with a local account

 

[malachi]

I simply disabled wifi when doing it on a laptop recently.

Doesn't always work. I even disabled it in the bios.

Refused to continue setup until it detected an internet connection.

 

[malachi]

This only applies to Home right? Pro and Enterprise you just click the "nah mate, I'm good" button and carry on with a local account

Not anymore, it applies to all editions now.

 

[darael]

Not anymore, it applies to all editions now.

The 22621.674 Enterprise installer still gives you the Domain join option, even when installed with an active network connection.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

I'

The 22621.674 Enterprise installer still gives you the Domain join option, even when installed with an active network connection.

Yeh but that requires you to join a domain, that's not a local account though.

 

[darael]

I'


Yeh but that requires you to join a domain, that's not a local account though.

Other than enter a username, the installer doesn't ask me for anything else. I'm quite sure I've always used this method since the beginning of Windows 10 and I've never noticed anything untoward with any of my installations.

 

[Django x2]

I'


Yeh but that requires you to join a domain, that's not a local account though.

Yeah, no. It doesn't ask you to join the domain, just asks you to enter a local account (with which you can then join a domain, if you wish). That's what I've been doing since I got W11. Surprised I was the only one

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Yeah, no. It doesn't ask you to join the domain, just asks you to enter a local account (with which you can then join a domain, if you wish). That's what I've been doing since I got W11. Surprised I was the only one

ah interesting

 

[Rroff]

This only applies to Home right? Pro and Enterprise you just click the "nah mate, I'm good" button and carry on with a local account

Another of my annoyances with 10/11 - if this stuff was just on the Home edition and you could just buy the Pro edition and actually use the OS like a power user it would be a very different thing - increasingly these kind of silly annoyances are present in Pro and/or all versions of the OS as well...

 

[Orcvader]

Rufus has an option to create a local account and skip the Microsoft account part, but it'll use the same local name as the current PC. But it wouldn't surprise me if MS eventually drops local account support in a future Windows version.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Rufus has an option to create a local account and skip the Microsoft account part, but it'll use the same local name as the current PC. But it wouldn't surprise me if MS eventually drops local account support in a future Windows version.

There will be back lash with that. A lot of machines don't need to be online.

 

[Street]

I've still been doing the method in the op using [email protected] and anything as the password and it's been working every time.