Is This the Correct Way to Set Up a 'Local Account Only' for Windows 11 25H2 During OOBE Routine?

I will be helping a neighbour to set up a new Dell laptop. I would expect that once the laptop is first switched on I will be hit with Microsoft's OOBE. If I can I want to try and avoid having the women subjected to the privacy busting routine of using a Microsoft Account. To that end I looked for instructions to avoid this on a 25H2 installation: How to Install and Log In to Windows 11 Without a Microsoft Account. Can someone please have a look at that and tell me if those instructions will work for 25H2?

I should add that I have looked at Brink's tutorial Clean Install Windows 11 but I find it impossible to follow the spaghetti-junction of steps (not saying that the tutorial is 'bad' just that I'm getting old now and not thinking as clearly as my younger years).

I would also add that on my own desktop and laptop I did manage to avoid the Microsoft Account and OOBE rubbish by downloading an ISO and using Rufus as a clean install workaround. All that went fine for me, but that was on my own machines. I don't want to risk doing that on a new machine that isn't mine and particularly as this is a Dell laptop and I have no previous experience of using them and how to get all required drivers for the machine.

Create a local account rather than a MS account during windows setup of a new computer.

Do not connect to internet until afterward.

During setup, when you reach the second keyboard layout screen DO NOT SELECT SKIP.

Hit Shift+F10 keyboard combination to open a Windows command prompt.

At this prompt, type

start ms-cxh:localonly

and press Enter on your keyboard to open a create user account window where you can create a new local user.

After filling in the information and clicking the Next button, the Windows 11 setup will continue

During a clean install it's step 15 here.

glasskuter said:

Create a local account rather than a MS account during windows setup of a new computer.

Do not connect to internet until afterward.

During a clean install it's step 15 here.

Clean Install Windows 11

This tutorial will show you step by step on how to clean install Windows 11 at boot on your PC with or without an Internet connection and setup with a local account or Microsoft account. Windows 11 has all the power and security of Windows 10 with a redesigned and refreshed look. It also comes...

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Click to expand...

Thank you so much for responding.

Can you say what "until afterward" means? Does that mean to switch off my Wi-Fi router before even switching the laptop on? And only switch on the Wi-Fi after entering the command start ms-cxh:localonly

I'm not clear on when to disable and when to enable the Wi-Fi.

In this guide, I’ll outline the methods that still work to bypass the online account and connection requirements for setting up Windows 11.

BuddhaNature said:

I'm not clear on when to disable and when to enable the Wi-Fi.

Click to expand...

It means don't have the device connected to ethernet. Connecting to wifi is not until step 17 (after this step)

BuddhaNature said:

Thank you so much for responding.

Can you say what "until afterward" means? Does that mean to switch off my Wi-Fi router before even switching the laptop on? And only switch on the Wi-Fi after entering the command start ms-cxh:localonly

I'm not clear on when to disable and when to enable the Wi-Fi.

Click to expand...

To help you clarify this the installation process will look for internet access as part of the install process. One way to avoid is to not connect an ethernet cable to the system. If you do not connect ethernet it will then look for Wifi sources. During a clean install if the installer has useful wireless drivers it will install them and then will ask to connect to a wifi signal. This is where you simply avoid giving it access to your gateway device/wireless router. You do not have to turn off any wifi devices. Wait until the installation is complete and you've booted up with a Local acct. THEN allow access to your wireless signal.

Doing more research on this Dell 16 DC16251 laptop I find that Dell set the Widows 11 Home install routine such that on first boot of the laptop Microsoft Encryption is applied to the drive as the user enters data for setting up a Microsoft Account during the OOBE routine. This is a bummer so can someone comment on the following:

If I manage to successfully create a Local Account using the command start ms-cxh://setaddlocalonly (as described above) will that automatically prevent the laptop's drive from being encrypted by the Microsoft install routine?

If setting the Local Account won't prevent BitLocker (or whatever its called on Windows 11 Home) from being activated is there some other way of preventing that from happening?

BuddhaNature said:

If I manage to successfully create a Local Account using the command start ms-cxh://setaddlocalonly (as described above) will that automatically prevent the laptop's drive from being encrypted by the Microsoft install routine?

Click to expand...

With a local account It should keep device encryption from being enabled, but as you know, weird stuff can happen. If you are give an encryption key, be sure to write it down so the drive can be un-encrypted.

BuddhaNature said:

If setting the Local Account won't prevent BitLocker (or whatever its called on Windows 11 Home) from being activated is there some other way of preventing that from happening?

Click to expand...

At least up until now (and AFIK still works), a clean install using installation media created with Rufus can bypass encryption.

BuddhaNature said:

Doing more research on this Dell 16 DC16251 laptop I find that Dell set the Widows 11 Home install routine such that on first boot of the laptop Microsoft Encryption is applied to the drive as the user enters data for setting up a Microsoft Account during the OOBE routine. This is a bummer so can someone comment on the following:

If I manage to successfully create a Local Account using the command start ms-cxh://setaddlocalonly (as described above) will that automatically prevent the laptop's drive from being encrypted by the Microsoft install routine?

If setting the Local Account won't prevent BitLocker (or whatever its called on Windows 11 Home) from being activated is there some other way of preventing that from happening?

Click to expand...

Using a local account it should NOT encrypt the drive. To confirm it, search for BitLocker and click to open Manage BitLocker. If you see the Windows drive (C) is encrypted, select to decrypt it immediately and disable BitLocker. If you see it is Off (not encrypted), then you should be OK.

Okay, glasskuter, I'll give that try and see what happens, but as you say, weird stuff can happen. I wouldn't be anxious about this but this is for a laptop that isn't mine. If it was for my own laptop I would do a clean install via Rufus and avoid all the MS rubbish that way — I did that for my own laptop.

In the end I might be pressed into Rufus anyway but I want to be sure I can deal with installing all the correct drivers provided by Dell.

Damn! Well I just read this: Local Account workaround "ms-cxh:localonly" no longer working Is the content of that thread true?

Now I'm thinking discretion might be the better part of valour so I'm wondering to let the woman create a Microsoft Account and be done at that.

I just did a clean install of Windows 11 Pro 25H2 on one of my desktop computers a couple weeks ago. I left the Ethernet connected the whole time. During the setup when the region select dialog came up I entered the following:

Shift+F10
start ms-cxh:localonly

Click to expand...

After that it asked me to create a local account.

After I booted the first time I checked the settings for BitLocker. It was enabled. A message said to log into my Microsoft account to complete the setup. Instead I selected to disable BitLocker. After that it proceeded to decrypt the C: drive.

Note this computer previously had Windows 10 Pro on it so reactivation was no problem.

BuddhaNature said:

Damn! Well I just read this: Local Account workaround "ms-cxh:localonly" no longer working Is the content of that thread true?

Now I'm thinking discretion might be the better part of valour so I'm wondering to let the woman create a Microsoft Account and be done at that.

Click to expand...

This is for some Insider's (aka Beta) version. Last time I checked, both the localonly and the bypassnro commands work in 25H2. The difference is that the file C:\Windows\System32\oobe\bypassnro.cmd has been removed, but you can copy it from an older Windows 11 version and use it. If 26H2 forces us into a Microsoft Account hopefully some other workaround will be discovered. In worst case we will install 25H2 first and then upgrade to 26H2. However this is too soon to worry about.

I recently did a clean install of 25h2 and the usual oobe command worked fine. Pretty sure it was version 6584 on usb stick

Hopefully the standard release Windows 11 25H2 ISO is unaffected. For 26H2, if they decide to block local accounts, we will find another workaround. One of them is to press CTRL+SHIFT+F3 to enter Audit Mode. This means you skip OOBE and login with the built-in Administrator account (equivalent to Root in Linux). From there you can install drivers and applications without creating an account. Guess what else you can do? That's right, you can create a local account! So when you restart in OOBE, it will detect the local account and skip creating an account!