Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it was removing a popular command line that allowed users to bypass connecting to the internet and signing into a Microsoft Account during the setup phase on Windows 11.
Since 2022, Windows 11 has required both an internet connection and Microsoft Account when setting up a new PC. Naturally, not everybody wants this, and so workarounds and bypasses have been discovered.
The most popular bypass was “oobebypassnro” which, when typed into the command prompt during the Windows 11 setup experience, would enable a button that let you skip connecting to the internet, thus bypassing the Microsoft Account requirement.
Microsoft has said that it is removing this command to push more users to connect to the internet and sign in with a Microsoft Account during the setup phase. Understandably, the internet is outraged.
While oobebypassnro is being removed, the actual registry entry that enables the button to skip connecting to the internet isn’t, at least not yet. So you can still manually create the registry edit yourself, but that’s a much longer and tedious process.
But fret not, as a new, perhaps better bypass has already been discovered that still uses the command prompt (which you can open with Shift + F10) and makes skipping the Microsoft Account sign-in step a total breeze.
Discovered by user @witherornot1337 on X, t
