A new workaround that bypasses the Microsoft account requirement when setting up a Windows 11 PC has been discovered. This comes right after an old workaround was plugged by the company.
The new workaround, discovered by Wither OrNot on X (and was confirmed to work by BleepingComputer) takes advantage of one line of code that is implemented into the command prompt during a Windows 11 install.
The new workaround is even more straightforward than the previous workaround that Microsoft shut down (which required registry tweaks). Only two steps are required: Pressing Shift + F10 to get into the command prompt when the Windows 11 installation wizard appears, then executing the command start ms-cxh:localonly in the CMD.
This bypasses the Microsoft account requirement and opens up a new window where users can input credentials to make a new local account instead. It works on Windows 11 Home and Pro, and apparently works on other editions, such as Windows 11 Enterprise, too.
However, the X poster claimed that killing the internet on non-Home and non-Pro versions of Windows 11 still works to bypass the Microsoft account requirement.
This discovery couldn’t have come at a better time. Starting with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516, Microsoft killed a previous workaround that also used the command prompt (the OOBE/BYPASSNRO method) to restore access to local account creation during Windows 11 installs. As a result, the only way to get this same workaround working in the a preview build was to implement the same functionality through the Windows Registry, significantly complicating things..