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A good question. There are arguments on both sides.
Signing into your PC with a Microsoft account certainly is more secure than using a local account, particularly if you have a laptop that you take out and about with you and that may be stolen. There are many well known ways to break in and reset the password of a local account, giving the thief access to any online websites, banking, and/or mail accounts you may have been signed into at the time.
I had the sad duty of having to do just that for my cousin when her husband passed away, leaving no record of his PC's password. His was a Microsoft account, and there was no way I could find to reset it or convert it to a local account. The best I could do was create a new local account to retrieve his documents.
And it is for that reason that I prefer to sign into all my PCs with a local account. I have seen too many support questions on Ten Forums and here where the user has been locked out of their PC after loosing access to or the password for their Microsoft account. You're supposed to be able to get in with a local password if there's a problem with your Microsoft Account, but most users finding themselves in that position seem to have no idea what it was, or if they ever set one up.
I know I can break into all my PCs and reset the local account should I ever get locked out. I don't want to complicate that by using a Microsoft Account as my sign in for the whole PC. That's not to say I don't have a Microsoft account, nor do I fear MS are 'spying' on me. I do have one, and use it to sign into Widgets, OneDrive, the Store and other Microsoft apps. I just don't want to have to rely on it as my only way to sign into the PC.
A Microsoft account (MSA) is a good choice if a user wants to use the same account on multiple devices, or wants to make it easy to use all / any Microsoft services. Setting up a preinstalled Windows 10 on a new device, after a clean install, or creating a new user on existing Windows...
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The advantage of making the call early is that for the local account you use to set up the PC initially you can give its User folder any name you want. For a local account the name of the user folder is the same as the name you choose for the account. For a Microsoft Account the user folder name is the first 5 characters of your email address.
But you can switch a local account to being a Microsoft account, or vice versa, any time you like. You don't have to make a new local account if you initially set up the PC with your Microsoft Account.
This tutorial will show you how to switch to a local account from a Microsoft account to sign in to Windows 11 with instead. You can sign in to Windows 11 with a local account or a Microsoft account. However, you can easily switch between using a local account or a Microsoft account to sign in...
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This tutorial will show you how to switch to a Microsoft account from a local account to sign in to Windows 11 with instead. You can sign in to Windows 11 with a local account or a Microsoft account. However, you can easily switch between using a local account or a Microsoft account to sign in...
www.elevenforum.com
The choice is yours, local or MS as the initial account. If you take the PC everywhere with you then a Microsoft Account would be the more secure choice. MS are certainly making it very difficult to set up a PC with just a local account as the first account, so the MS account is certainly the easier option. There's no requirement that it has to stay as a Microsoft account once you are set up though.
