Until fairly recently, I would have agreed, but Microsoft is actively enshittifying Windows now by pushing things like cloud-only logins and ads in Start while simultaneously removing configurability (e.g. vertical taskbar was removed in Win11). I'm not a fan of macOS, but at least Apple is not all in on ads the way Microsoft seems to be these days.
Everything that I described above, I observed personally. The no-vertical-taskbar thing has been an open issue in the tracker for many years; if it works now, I'm glad to hear it.
Regarding local accounts, it is supported by Windows, but the installer will straight up refuse to let you create such an account now (so you have to install using a cloud account and log into it at least once to create a local account). Previously, there used to be workarounds like installing without Internet, or certain incantations you could do in the "recovery" terminal during installation, but they have been killed off one by one. If you haven't seen this yourself, it just means that you haven't installed Windows 11 recently.
Just to let you know i am booting a VM to install windows 11 while recording with OBS studio. Check this space for updates. I'll admit if i am wrong.
looks like this is correct. I didn't have to do this before, so there's some software switch in the iso i have that triggered a "must update" - which makes sense.
Not to shift the goalposts, but you can disable the microsoft login after you set it up. I'm 99% sure that apple and google both require you to give them a username and password, as well.
I am getting the 24H2 disk image now. The one i was using is `Win11_22H2_English_x64v2.iso` - which is real old. It makes sense to me that microsoft wouldn't want you to use an old installer without being connected to the internet.
The download is probably going to take longer than my edit timeout, if so and anything changes about my comment i'll make a reply
> I'm 99% sure that apple and google both require you to give them a username and password, as well.
I have no idea about Google, but with Apple, they require you to create a local account when installing. After that, the Settings app will pester you to link it to your Apple ID, but this can be ignored, and only shows up when you are in Settings on your user account page.
i installed windows 11 without a cloud login. Without a CD key. I actually ran the windows installer 3 times since you commented and i first replied. So i kinda lost track of what it was doing this time - i didn't notice it said it was going to reboot before the screen went black, i missed that it was waiting for input with the language selection. But i didn't edit the video at all, so you can scrub around and make sure. Ignore my dig at the end, like i said, i installed windows 3 times.
https://github.com/memstechtips/UnattendedWinstall
you put the XML file in the iso. well, that's what i did. they have an automated thing that makes a bootable USB stick but i don't need that. I actually have a microsoft account because i use the xbox for windows and copilot. I don't use it to log in to windows - and even if i reinstalled i'd use the regular ISO and log in and then dis-associate my account with my windows install after it finished installing, as microsoft says you can do inside the installer
I gotta say i completely understand microsoft doing this, and had i been in the voting meeting where this was decided i probably would have voted to have the default be "cloud login" - the average person isn't going to be able to do anything if the forget their password, short of taking the computer to best buy to have it wiped and reinstalled (or whatever). in the video link, you can see it ask me security questions, which we all probably know are a poor way to ensure continuous access.
So this "drop an xml file on the iso" is proof positive that i take full responsibility for the data on this operating system - if i forget my password and my security questions, i'm locked out. period. Microsoft can't help because i told them i was smarter than the average user.
The question isn't the default but rather the ability to opt out. And no, "drop XML on your ISO image" is not an acceptable bar for that.
But, more importantly, it's not a given that this will continue working onwards. As things are, there have already been three different ways to force the installer into letting you use a local account, the most recent one of which involved using the recovery terminal when booted from ISO - that's already way past most users. And yet Microsoft methodically killed each and every method every time, so I fully expect your suggested workaround to stop working. They seem to be very determined to ensure that no "non-enterprise" version of Windows lets people do that.
what do you reckon it costs microsoft to support people that "opted out"? what amount of legal boilerplate would indemnify Microsoft against lawsuits over lost data because someone chose to opt out?
If the only option is to modify the installer the only people who are going to opt out are the sort of people that understand that microsoft has no responsibility to our data, and pretending they do is silly. It's pure CYA from Microsoft.
If you personally don't like it, then use their automated thumb-drive creation tool (at that same link) to make a new bootable USB stick that installs with the "opt out". I modified the ISO because i was installing on a Virtual Machine. If i was gunna do it on metal i'd use a USB stick because all my optical drives are USB and not that fast.
I don't think we disagree, i think we're coming at this from different sides. I don't expect microsoft to spend more money than they have to.
I need to remind here that the very notion of a cloud account didn't exist for literally decades in the past, and I don't recall anyone suing Microsoft about losing a password etc. The legal angle for such things is firmly covered by EULAs, anyway - I worked for Microsoft for 15 years, and I can assure you that the lawyers there are very adept at such things. And then, of course, Apple clearly doesn't have any legal issues despite only having local accounts on macOS even today. Nor are cloud accounts free of legal issues themselves, what with GDPR etc. In fact, I'm pretty sure that cloud accounts are more "legal heavy" on the whole.
I would believe that it was purely about costs if they simply removed the checkbox from the installer but still left the command line workaround - that is plenty sufficient to ensure that the user "understands that Microsoft has no responsibility", and generally to prevent the clueless from shooting themselves in the foot. But given that even such advanced techniques were removed shortly after they were discovered, I'm certain at this point that it is a concerted effort to drive all non-enterprise users towards cloud accounts. And given that Microsoft is heavily investing into ads, and generally has a Google envy for a very long time now, I think that it any product decision that clearly correlates with more ability to track users and collect their data is likely to be at least partially motivated by that, just as it is in case of Google.
