Monday, July 1st 2024
Microsoft Closer to Removing Local Accounts from Windows 11, Removes Help Page on How to Switch to One
Microsoft really wants you to use Windows 11 with an online Microsoft Account. This lets the operating system integrate the single login for Microsoft Store, all the apps on it, Office or 365, Teams, OneDrive, Outlook, and more importantly, put a face to your name (making you and your machine identifiable to it). Some users, particularly power-users, tend to avoid this, by preferring local accounts—an account that's authenticated and maintained locally by the machine. Microsoft is viewed as making it increasingly difficult for users to create local accounts, particularly on the client versions of Windows, such as Windows 11 Home and Windows 11 Pro.
The Windows Setup by default flows you into creating a Microsoft Account, or logging in from one. Over the past several versions of Windows, Microsoft has made it harder, if not impossible, to create a local account during Setup. In what could be a step closer by the company to wean the market off local accounts, Microsoft removed the online Help page that guides users on how to switch from a Microsoft Account to a local one, as Tweaktown found out. The publication dug the page out using the Wayback Machine. Will Microsoft completely remove the ability to create local accounts? We don't know. All versions of Windows 11 and Windows 10 sit on the Windows NT architecture, which requires some form of local accounts. The Microsoft Account itself is layered on top of a local account. So, the ability to create a local account shouldn't go away for those who really want one, but it will be close to impossible for the vast majority of users trained by Google and Apple to have online accounts on their phones.
Source:
Tweaktown
The Windows Setup by default flows you into creating a Microsoft Account, or logging in from one. Over the past several versions of Windows, Microsoft has made it harder, if not impossible, to create a local account during Setup. In what could be a step closer by the company to wean the market off local accounts, Microsoft removed the online Help page that guides users on how to switch from a Microsoft Account to a local one, as Tweaktown found out. The publication dug the page out using the Wayback Machine. Will Microsoft completely remove the ability to create local accounts? We don't know. All versions of Windows 11 and Windows 10 sit on the Windows NT architecture, which requires some form of local accounts. The Microsoft Account itself is layered on top of a local account. So, the ability to create a local account shouldn't go away for those who really want one, but it will be close to impossible for the vast majority of users trained by Google and Apple to have online accounts on their phones.
137 Comments on Microsoft Closer to Removing Local Accounts from Windows 11, Removes Help Page on How to Switch to One
MS update policy is a bit like a spoiled kid that keeps asking for candy, even after you got fed up and told him he wouldn't get ANY candy anymore. Awww? Pwease? *poke poke*
The sad thing is that setup will likely break on every feature update, the tools will need updating and so forth.
That we have all these tools and this type of content, Microsoft should be taking this in and realising they may have got things wrong in the UI area.
Oh yeah, profit ofcourse through the strategy of making people's lives miserable - the Meta/TikTok way. I guess they learned a bit about stupid people unable to help themselves. They're cash cows.
LTSC not getting these prompts. :)