Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without an online account

And how does this affect Microsoft?

The vast majority will sucker punch into giving them an account. We're talking about a small minority of people doing these bypasses.

Just use Rufus to prepare your USB drive. It has the same functionality as BypassNRO, without having to run the missing script.

It's my belief that these MS changes will make creating a local account with Rufus no longer work.

For Pro users, it's not that big of a deal to set up with a MS account, create another user account as a Local account. Delete MS account. But Windows Home users may be limited to only MS account sometime in the very near future..

Unless Brink can come up with a miracle solution for a local account during setup, we can look forward to an even bigger barrage of Onedrive questions around the holidays. People don't understand it (and they never will) and some are resistant to doing what they gotta do to get rid of it. There are even some users here that do not give complete instructions to get rid of Onedrive in the right way.....and that way is NOT to just delete Onedrive. It's absolutely exhausting.

Yeah, I'm in a mood.

glasskuter said:

It's my belief that these MS changes will make creating a local account with Rufus no longer work.

For Pro users, it's not that big of a deal to set up with a MS account, create another user account as a Local account. Delete MS account. But Windows Home users may be limited to only MS account sometime in the very near future..

Click to expand...

Wanna bet?

Rufus can either apply the BypassNRO reg value, or create a Local Account primary user by name. MS could always block the reg check, but never a Local Account created from an unattended file. The catch is you have to inform Rufus what that Local Account's name is before running the install.

You're covered either way.

dacrone said:

haWanna bet?

Click to expand...

OMG. You said my trigger word. In my younger days I was a habitual gambler. I'd bet on a fly on the wall. I could tell you some tales.

A five dollar bill says ....my gut tells me it will be sooner but let me give myself a little leeway on my prediction here....Home primary administrator users will be limited to MS accounts on new installs and oobe on new devices by.....let's say Windows 12 (or whatever they call it )first version update. That should be fall of 2027.
If you wanna take that bet just remember I'm old and may be dead by then so you might have to dig 6 feet to get that $5 I'll tightly be clutching in my hand. But if I'm still here I'll gladly pay up if I lose. He((, a bet with you might be just the incentive I need to still be here in 2027 to get five whole dollars from you.

A hidden Administrator will be there forever, because there has to be a backup in case of an outage.
But is is about time local insecure accounts were banned, people get hacked and then complain to MS.
Local account can not even have a secure password, it can be bypassed within secs locally and remotely.

Brink said:

Starting with Windows 11 build 26220.6772 (Dev 25H2) and build 26120.6772 (Beta (24H2), Microsoft is removing known mechanisms for creating a local account in the Windows Setup experience (OOBE). While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use. Users will need to complete OOBE with internet and a Microsoft account, to ensure device is setup correctly.

Click to expand...

But do see Bree post #17 below for a solution that still works for 26220.6772 - running the BypassNRO.cmd contents ourselves:-
reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE /v BypassNRO /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
then reboot.

Denis

TairikuOkami said:

Local account can not even have a secure password

Click to expand...

Please explain.

TairikuOkami said:

password ... can be bypassed within secs

Click to expand...

Please explain.


Denis

TairikuOkami said:

A hidden Administrator will be there forever, because there has to be a backup in case of an outage.
But is is about time local insecure accounts were banned, people get hacked and then complain to MS.
Local account can not even have a secure password, it can be bypassed within secs locally and remotely.

Click to expand...

An online account does not make it much more difficult. Maybe a bit harder, but not much. Windows is full of holes. If one wants to get in, the one who knows what they're doing can get in.

Instead of the command oobe\bypassnro, try the new one:

start ms-cxh:localonly

However, while the previous command made some changes to the system, restarted and you went through the OOBE again, the new command stops whatever the OOBE is doing and immediately let you create a local account and proceed. This is ideal for anyone wanting to skip the whole boring OOBE stage. Just run the command, create a local account and login directly to the desktop!

Advanced bypass using the hidden Administrator account: Press CTRL+SHIFT+F3 to skip the whole OOBE and login with the hidden built-in Administrator account. This is known as Audit mode and let OEMs install any drivers and apps without going through the OOBE stage. The OOBE stage will begin again at next restart. Guess what else you can do? Right! Manually create a new local account! Do that and restart to begin the OOBE stage again. With a big difference, since there is already at least one user, it is treated like an upgrade, rather than a new installation, and OOBE skips the part where you create an account! When finished you just login with the first available account, the one you created before! Needless to say that works in both Home and Pro.

spapakons said:

Instead of the command oobe\bypassnro, try the new one:

start ms-cxh:localonly

Click to expand...

According to the article linked to in the first post of the thread MS have removed that option too in the latest Windows 11 builds.

Microsoft already removed the “bypassnro” workaround earlier this year, and today’s changes also disable the “start ms-cxh:localonly” command that Windows 11 users discovered after Microsoft’s previous changes. Using this command now resets the OOBE process and it fails to bypass the Microsoft account requirement.

Click to expand...

CarlSD said:

According to the article linked to in the first post of the thread MS have removed that option too in the latest Windows 11 builds.

Click to expand...

I will create a new virtual machine, boot with the Windows 11 25H2 ISO and confirm if that is true. As a last resort, until something new is discovered, we can use the Audit mode method, see my previous post. I'll post my results here and in the respective sticky thread hot to install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs, as reference.

Might be a good idea to save the 24H2 ISO of Windows 11 like I have so if you need to do a clean install you just install 24H2 with a local account then update to 25H2 which is just a small enablement package anyway once you're up to date with all the other updates.

I'm sure MS wouldn't disable your local account and make you use an MS account if you did that? Or would they? Nothing about them would surprise me anymore.

I created a virtual machine with Legacy BIOS (to test compatibility with 25H2 booting from a Legacy BIOS system) and installing Windows 11 Home (to check if you can create a local account on Home, not only Pro). I will post my results soon. So far I can say the Registry tweak to bypass compatibility check still works in 25H2. I typed the values manually, didn't use any script. Also I didn't find how to modify partitions before installation, so I switched to old Setup version, just in case.

Wolfzz said:

Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without an online account

Microsoft is disabling the best local account workarounds

www.theverge.com

Click to expand...

glasskuter said:

It's my belief that these MS changes will make creating a local account with Rufus no longer work.

Click to expand...

spapakons said:

Instead of the command oobe\bypassnro, try the new one:

start ms-cxh:localonly

Click to expand...

I have downloaded the UUPDump ISO for Dev build 26220.6772 and performed a clean install.

Yes, it is true that OOBE\BypassNRO.cmd has been removed.

No, it isn't true that the commands it contained no longer work. Just type them yourself....



...look 'I don't have internet' is still there




You can find a copy of BypassNRO on any install of Windows up to the present day in: "C:\Windows\System32\oobe\BypassNRO.cmd".
Save it now while you can

Or

garlin said:

Just use Rufus to prepare your USB drive. It has the same functionality as BypassNRO, without having to run the missing script.

Click to expand...

No more bets please!

As I said I clean installed Windows 11 25H2 on a virtual machine which was deliberately made to boot in Legacy BIOS mode. The well known Registry values to bypass compatibility check from 21H2 also work in 25H2. I then first tried the good old command to bypass creating a Microsoft Account. I pressed SHIFT+F10 and typed this command:

oobe\bypassnro

As with all previous versions, it made some changes to the system and restarted. Curious to see if it had any effect, I proceeded with the usual configuration (Location, Language, keyboard layout) to see what happens. After selecting US layout (I installed the US English version of Windows 11 25H2), I added the Greek keyboard layout as second. At this point it seemed to hang and after several seconds I saw a message that something went wrong with the OOBE language and offered to try again or skip. I tried again, same, it threw the same error, so I clicked on skip. Besides I can add any languages later from the Settings. It proceeded to the Network page, but the good old blue text "I don't have an internet connection" was there! So I clicked on it and created a LOCAL administrator account! Success! After some seconds more, I saw another message that something went wrong again with OOBE, so I just clicked skip and was at the desktop! So the old method with the oobe\bypassnro command STILL WORKS! Apparently whoever said it doesn't work forgot to disconnect from the internet! It makes sense, we are trying to fool Windows we don't have an internet connection to allow us create a local account. It will never work if we are connected! People please use your brain before writing anything on the internet that will mislead others! Of course I am referring to the web link, not to anyone here!

Now I am going to wipe the disk, reinstall Windows 11 25H2 and try the start ms-cxh:localonly command. I will keep you informed!

Life’s too short.
- RUFUS.