My guess is that a lot of people are using the crappy Home edition.
I tried to domain join the third device to see what that flow is like. It asks:
1. Personal use / Work or School
2. You are asked to login to Azure AD. You have to click a small (10pt?) link for "Sign-in options." with no indication that will let you join to the domain.
3. Pick "Domain Join instead"
4. It asks you to setup a local account ("Even better, use an online account" :-)
5. _You finish setup without the device actually being joined to the domain!?_
6a. You now have to login (click)
6b. and go to the system settings (click)
6c. go to accounts (click, ad for M365),
6d. go to "Connect to work or school" (click),
6e. click another "Connect" button with no indication that it will join it to a domain,,
6f. Click another small link for "Join this device to a local Active Directory domain" to domain join the PC.
So, I'm sorry, but if you think the Pro SKU is better in this regard you are just incorrect. There is no excuse for these dark patterns, this is user-hostile behavior designed to convert you to being recurring SaaS revenue and not retail revenue.
As an added bonus I just tried to create a Windows 11 VM in hyper-v to confirm my memory, and _Microsoft Hyper-V_ doesn't even correctly configure itself to allow Windows installation to proceed by default. (Secure Boot enabled, but no vTPM.) It then proceeded to download updates to the installer and reboot without a prompt or any option to skip it. Microsoft _clearly does not give a shit_ about the OOBE if you are not using their cloud services.
What makes Home crappy? Other than the account thing, obviously. You can't join a domain with it either, but then most people don't have a domain at home. There's some other disabled features, like Hyper-V, but why should people have to pay for a higher tier Windows to use a local account if they don't need the other features?
you also don't have Bitlocker
no Group Policy
no Active Directory
- RDP
- Windows Sandbox (super neat and useful and under-appreciated!)
- BitLocker
- Active Directory
- Local accounts, apparently
- Various other little things and some local policies.
I use all of the above Pro-only stuff.
If my use of "crappy" offended you, please substitute the term "less-featureful".
Other than that, I didn't say what Microsoft should or shouldn't do for home users. That's on you.
It's my personal belief that multiple Windows 11 editions are insulting, and it should just be a single OS edition, with all features available, across the board.