Is there a local account available for use with Windows 11?
Is there a local account available for use with Windows 11?
Hi, someone told me you cannot make an account in Windows 11 Home unless you are online. But there is a trick: just don't connect to the internet when you do this. My laptop comes with Windows 11 Home by default. When it first starts up, will it let me skip connecting to Wi-Fi? If I do that and disconnect, can I then make an account on Windows 11? I will also make sure my router is not connected via LAN while I do this. Please tell me. Thanks.
Thanks to @Colif. I read through this and want to ask one thing: what happens if you buy a laptop with Windows 11 already installed? Does it just go straight into a setup screen on first startup, or does something different happen?
On your brand new laptop, you are supposed to see an "Out of Box Experience" mode that is ready to set up your user accounts.
Totally wrong. They actually want you to sign up with an Microsoft account right at the start for your license. But that is not required after that. I have three different types of accounts on my systems. The Microsoft one is only needed if something goes wrong or if there are special needs from the MS Store. The Local Admin account handles everything when installing software or things needing admin rights. The Local Standard user account is what you use for normal daily work. Right now, how to do this? Once it's all done, just make a couple of local accounts and log in with those on your main system. I have not used my Microsoft account on my main machine for months. On a brand new Surface Go laptop I bought about two months ago, I only logged into the MS account once.
For anyone who is starting right now: I finally upgraded to Windows 11 and saw this too. The Home version feels a bit trickier because it expects you to have an internet connection already set up. The Enterprise and Pro versions probably give more choices for local login, but that's just me guessing. These two versions used to show more options designed for work than for home use.
First off, here is something I found: Windows 11 makes the first account logged in as Administrator by default. That is bad because you should never log into Administrator every day, let alone link your email and apps to it. Microsoft wants this protected; hackers try hard to get past that lock screen. If someone else has been clicking around on your computer already using your admin password, they can do even more damage.
Here is how to set up Windows properly:
- When you first install or create a profile for Windows 11, do it without an internet connection. If you are online now, the system will force you to sign in with Microsoft immediately. This means you should not have your ethernet cable plugged in and should not be connected to Wi-Fi just yet (though they call that "keeping things updated"). You can handle updating later if needed.
- You will see an option to skip signing into a Microsoft account. If you already messed up your setup or want to disconnect, use the Administrator account to create two new local users at once. These accounts will automatically become regular standard accounts. Then you can manage them and switch one to admin status while keeping the other as your daily login. Just remember to back up any files before deleting the old profile.
- If you really need to log into a Microsoft account, try using a different browser that cares more about privacy, like Firefox or Brave. They won't automatically link your MS account with your Windows profile and stop things from breaking easily.
- I also deleted all the junk apps bundled with Microsoft, including Office, Outlook, Xbox, etc., and there are third-party email tools you can use instead.
- Finally, I turned off Cortana.