It’s the end of yet another era, as Microsoft has removed the ability to create a local account when installing Windows 11. Admins will soon have to dig deeper into their toolbox if they want to install Windows 11 via offline methods, now that a new update is on its way. The latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6772 (KB5065797) has casually rolled out several new features and security improvements in the Dev Channel, but has also closed the door on offline installs.
Per Windows Insider Blog:
- “Local-only commands removal: We are 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.”
While the more tech-savvy, or admins with pre-established processes, might still have a means to push an image to a machine that will still allow the creation of a local account, those days could be numbered. However, the average user is unlikely to have the resources to execute any workaround to bypass this restriction. As Windows Central has reported, methods using commands to bypass such restrictions have been getting patched out. The “oobe/bypassnro” command was removed a while back, and “start ms-cxh:localonly” is being removed, and it’s probably only a matter of time until other methods are blocked from allowing “unapproved” versions of Windows 11 from being activated.
In essence, Microsoft is making it so that users must have an online connection when doing a first-time setup with Windows 11. For the time being, the latest update has only been seen in the Dev Channel, but it’s only a matter of time until it gets rolled out through the main channels. Meanwhile, Microsoft is set to cease support for Windows 10 in a matter of weeks, although EU users have been granted an extra year of support.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →So I guess all workstations for air gapped secure environments will stop using Microsoft and go to something like redhat with a friendly shell on top of it for the end users that need to run on airgapped local only systems.
I'm ok with this. Tired of MS making it harder to be secure for professionals.
It's not like you CAN'T have a local account at all, just not at initial setup.
not exactly running through Window setup in an enterprise environment anyways. We do that once, clean up everything that needs cleaning, install what needs to be installed, make an image and deploy that.
Yeah, for now there are work arounds and I imagine there always will be for enterprise users. I will say though that enterprise 365/Azure admins have a ton of options for device management and OS installs so it's almost pointless to even want a local account anymore. However, at least when it comes to personal devices, not so thrilled about them going in this direction.
We use InTune and O365 to manage everything. We can send someone a laptop with a fresh install of W11 that hasn't gone through setup. All the end user is doing is connecting to their network, logging in with their O365 account, InTune takes over and pushes all their software. Easy peasy
Rufus has entered the chat
2025 year of linux?
Doesnt matter, no one will care, microsoft could update everyones desktop with a cloud streaming desktop and 95% of the population would not notice.
Looking forward to my cloud desktop one morning.
I can say that 98% of the time I have no use for a local account on an enterprise environment. We do have a couple of servers outside the active directory domain, and we use a local account on them But I rarely log into those.
Exactly. Never been an issue if you make your Win11 OS installer flash drives with Rufus.
I wonder which will happen sooner (or at all)?
1. The year of Tesla FSD (unsupervised) - coming next year since 2012
2. The year of Linux - I don't even know when was the first such prediction made.
Half life 2 confirmed?
Well that game came out in 2004. You mean HL3?
Same here. I love InTune.
Ah yeah hehe HL3.
Gotta star citizen finished to the year of linux list too.
Kind of thing for alternate time lines.