Hacker News Reader

Comment by kleiba | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a Windows person but recently had to go through the setup process on my parents' newly purchased desktop machine. As far as I could tell, creating a user account just locally was not possible, you had to have an online account, hooked up with a valid email address. Given that most free email providers require you to provide your phone number (I don't own a phone), I had to do some digging--- all just to create a local user account on Windows 10.

View on HN

>As far as I could tell, creating a user account just locally was not possible, you had to have an online account, hooked up with a valid email address.

It's usually an option that's hidden away. It's definitely there if you disconnect the computer from the network when you install the OS.

Also, if you want the old type display drivers instead of DCH you'd have to do that. Otherwise Windows will automatically download and install DCH drivers which are a pain to uninstall.

Edit: if you're wondering what the problem with DCH drivers can be, then the problem is that they can't come with an application. If you have Nvidia display drivers installed as DCH and want to use the Nvidia Control Panel then you have to get the Control Panel from the Microsoft Store separately.

The whole point of DCH iirc was to decouple the rendering and display engine driver from the User/Control/Config interface.

This would basically allow Dell/Hp/Surface to use the same latest Intel/Nvidia/AMD drivers but have their differentiation and config apps updated on their own schedule while the OS takes care of the actual driver components.

so that's a feature not a bug.

Yes, and in practice it's a pain that forces/highly encourages you to use the Microsoft Store.

Well the initial version of Store (it didn't really improve in iterations of 10) was horrible UX and dodgy state changes. It's essentially just a webpage and a very bad one at that.

The new store that I've been using in internal builds is far more responsive. I believe they will require a Microsoft ID to access it, but other than that I have no complaints about the new version.

I thought the current store was a native UWP app? Am I wrong?

Yes, the current store is a very janky UWP app written in HTML and javascript. I believe their original motive was to share the code base between the online store and the desktop client.

It's possible, but only if you don't connect to the internet. See https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-set-up-windows-10-with-a...

Yes which is why you don't connect to wifi right away. But I've installed Windows without an internet connection many times.

On a recent (i.e. the last 2 or 3 major releases) Windows 10 install (any edition) you can create a local account during the post-install setup assistant by selecting to make an offline account and then selecting "limited experience" when it tries to convince you an online account is better.

You can see this in steps 8 and 9 at https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set-windows-10-local-acco...

I just did an install of Windows 10 this morning and can confirm that the option is still there in 21H1.

It is available on Pro but not Home unless you disable all Internet access while doing the install.

On Windows 11 it seems like they are saying you won't be able to install Home without an active Internet connection.

You can set up an offline account but you have to literally disable any Internet connection (pull the Ethernet cable, turn off the WiFi card, etc) so that it activates the option to tell the installer you want to install offline.

>>Given that most free email providers require you to provide your phone number

Didn't windows suggest to create a free email @outlook.com (or whatever MS have for free emails)? I have used that on a couple of computers, was no requirement for phone number and I have no idea about what the addresses I created are

Can you make a Microsoft account at the time of install?

I think I’m just going to make a junk account instead of linking it to any real account I use

That's what I did, but I first had to find a free email provider that doesn't asks for a valid phone number.

Similar experience here. Upon first boot, (i.e. during setup of windows) MS insists upon a microsoft account.

Typically, you're not in a position to google around for how to not have that. After all, you're in an OS setup screen, without a browser.

>"As far as I could tell, creating a user account just locally was not possible"

I do it all the time. Do not plug network cable and do not connect to WiFi. Windows then proceeds to setting up local account

If you do accidentally connect to a network, before you realise this, there's no way to get it to forget. Rebooting doesn't work. The only solution I found was walking 30m away to the other side of the parking lot out of range of WiFi.

Disable WiFi in the BIOS.

Insane that you have to resort to that.

You don't have to resort to that.

Start the install over from scratch. You can have wifi enabled when installing. Just don't plug in a network cable and don't connect to a wifi network when it prompts you to. Read carefully, you can avoid connecting and if you do you don't connect, you don't have to use a Microsoft account.

Shift+F10 is your friend at installation time.

Creating a local use account in Windows 11 is _much_ easier than in Windows 10 (at least based on the leaked version I have seen).

iirc it is possible, but I recall you needed to click unobvious buttons or just do it while offline and connect only after that

It used to be a sneaky button, but last time I installed there was no way to do it without disconnecting from the Internet. If you're connected, you are not presented an option to create a local account, even in a way that's hard to find.

Last time I did it, the trick was to begin logging in or creating a new online account (forget which way), and from there you could actually change your mind and create a local account.

It looks like they removed it from Home but not Pro.

https://i.imgur.com/vxs03rC.png

Another difference: Cortana talks you through the installation on Home but not Pro. After years of installing Pro that was a bit of a shock.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com