Umar Shakir is a news writer fond of the electric vehicle lifestyle and things that plug in via USB-C. He spent over 15 years in IT support before joining The Verge.
Microsoft is no longer playing around when it comes to requiring every Windows 11 device be set up with an internet-connected account. In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company says it will take out a well-known bypass script that let end users skip the requirement of connecting to the internet and logging in with a Microsoft account to get through the initialization process of a new PC.
As reported by Windows Central, Microsoft already requires users to connect to the internet, but there’s a way to bypass it: the bypassnro command. For those setting up computers for businesses or secondary users, or simply, on principle refuse to link their computer to a Microsoft account, the command is super simple to activate during the Windows setup process.
Microsoft cites security as
41 Comments
ranger_danger
Anyone know if this comment on the article is actually true?
– Select Organization
– Select Sign In Options
– Choose Domain Join
– Create a username and leave the password blank.
– You'll be logged into Windows without a Microsoft account!
jwoglom
> We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11. This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account.
"enhancing security and user experience" — what a ridiculous, bold-faced lie. Bravo Microsoft.
ivanjermakov
After rolling the update that unintentionally uninstalled Copilot, they're back at net negative "upgrades".
mholt
How can you set up / use Windows without an Internet connection? Surely that's not an unsupported use case anymore, is it? There's gotta be plenty of places where Internet connectivity is not available or is restricted.
lousken
Enhanced security, if you connect your device to the internet.
Can they at least stop bullshitting? It's shameful
LinuxBender
Is this loophole the method used by Rufus when burning images that add options to skip Microsoft account, TPM checks, etc…?
qwerpy
What is MS's motivation to push so strongly to have everyone on a Microsoft account? I really hope it's not primarily so that they can more effectively target your computer for ads. Or upsell some service subscriptions.
downrightmike
They are just determined to lose all retail users
486sx33
Somewhat related and mentioned in the article. New to me.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/11/23913107/microsoft-windo…
diego_sandoval
What are you supposed to do if you have no Internet connectivity? You basically have a brick on your hands until you can connect it to the Internet? That's ridiculous.
DecentShoes
The best marketing campaign for Linux, is Windows 11.
NotYourLawyer
Windows 7 was legitimately pretty good. It’s been downhill ever since.
tapoxi
I have a recent (2024) Gigabyte AMD motherboard and Windows 11 refuses to recognize the Ethernet NIC or onboard wifi. I can't load the drivers during setup either because they're .exe installers and it wants .inf files or something.
I got mad and installed Fedora Kinoite, which somehow just worked out of the box. My games all worked too.
I've been mulling over installing a Windows partition for the inevitable game with anti-cheat I'd like to play (Battlefield) but insanely hostile shit like this has made me reconsider.
MrMcCall
I've been skipping dealing with a MS id every day for coming up on seven years now :-) and I had been (ab)using OpenBSD for a few years before that, so it's been a nice long hiatus.
I do, however, miss the early F# on WinXpPro64, having bought the Pro install version a million years ago for a clean install, using it for quite a few years on an early q6600, I'd love to be able to fire up one of my boot disk images into a no-network VM subnet from those years, maybe even creating network drives to connect and disconnect to in order to migrate files to and from. It was fully registered and current, with up-to-date service packs and everything, and quite a bit of nice MS dev software as well, and nicely stripped down by cannonballing down into the registry morass and tweaking as many sections as possible over the years.
Any clues on which modern 64bit linux or BSD would allow it to boot and run and as a functioning MS instance to run old-school commandline F# fsi.exe, including the recompiled one I made a tiny prompt change to? [That was some high-nerd-reward spelunking that I never really took advantage of.]
Maybe QEMU?
I loved the commandline interactivity; I had built up quite a suite of code to do some slick processing using F#'s mind-blowing pipe operator.
Anyway, AtDhVaAnNkCsE, and Happy Friday, all.
transcriptase
Since there’s a good chance someone involved will read this, I mean this in the most sincere way possible and I hope you take it to heart:
Just fuck off.
MarkusWandel
Last time I activated a Windows 11 system, I had already entered my Wifi credentials, and then couldn't find any way out of the online account trap. Eventually backed out far enough, deleted my wifi credentials again, forward again and created a local account. Have they closed that loophole too, i.e you can't activate it at all without cloud connectivity?
Another question, once you've activated it with an online account, is it possile to then create another local user and simply use that?
lofaszvanitt
How come the EU do not kick MS back into the stone age for shenanigans like these?
Does using a yubikey instead of a password works in that heap of shitpile? Or we need to wait for that another 10+ years?
MarkusWandel
Oh, another M$ account creation trick. When they discontinued Skype they said you could just log into Teams with your Skype credentials. Not so! That just forces you to enter an email address (that's not already associated with a M$ account) and guess what.. now you have ANOTHER M$ account. After this the Skype credentials are invalidated.
fumufumufumu
Aren't they just following Apple? Technically you can use an iPhone and Mac without an Apple (iCloud) account but it's pretty dang unsupported except for corp devices. If I recall correctly you can't install anything from the app store on an Mac/iPhone without an Apple account. On Mac you can run other stuff without an account. You can't on iPhone. You'd need XCode, XCode you can only get from the App Store or possibly from the developer site, Both the App store and the developer site require an account.
I'm not saying it's good, but I'd be curious how many non-corp users are using a Mac without an Apple account.
My current Windows box, Windows 11 Pro (forgot the version names). I setup an account registered with MS to get it installed. Then set up a separate user account, not registered with MS. I use that 2nd account for everything. I haven't logged into the first account in years.
rvba
Windows 11 taskbar has space… for 11 icons when run on a laptop screen.
This is killing my (and maaaany others) productivity since in some jobs you constantly need to switch between multiple windows.
Yea, extrnal programs exist, but they can br buggy, cost extra money on top… and good luck installing them on a coporate computer.
Ive seen like 20-30 people with the same problem: taskbar being useless. Windows 11 is bad at switching windows.
The taskbar cant even highlight the active window since everything is "graphically flat" too
gavinhoward
So I have Windows 10, and I was not looking forward to the "upgrade" to 11 at 10's EOL because of the TPM requirement.
With this change, I have decided to accept the insecurity of not updating and stick with 10. The only thing I do on Windows is ensure my FOSS is cross-platform.
inatreecrown2
Why do this? It was already a loophole that most users would never know of or care about using, but it is essential for a small core user base that cares about how they set up their systems. This cannot be a good business decision.
zb3
> We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience
I completely agree with this. By making Windows insufferable you're enhancing security and user experience by making users switch to Linux, which is superior in that regard. Well done, Microsoft.
edgarvaldes
I actively avoid using a MS account on my local Windows machines. Until last week when I logged into Teams and Windows activated that account as the Windows account on the next boot. The problem is: I was using my wife's laptop. I dunno how to remove the account without creating more problems.
WD-42
Windows set up is actually insane, I did it in a VM recently to test my app on Windows. I would say not only does it require a Microsoft account but you also have to agree to (at least) 3 EULAs about sharing/selling your data that are unskippable. Pretty sure it also makes you set your ad preferences.
Absolutely insane for an OS, I don't know how people put up with it as a daily driver.
zeeebo
I was banking on Windows 11 being a skip version but Windows 12 will probably be just as bad. Windows 10 forever then!
NKosmatos
Another stupid move by M$. No wonder the market share of Win11 is still below Win10. IMHO WinXP, 7 and 10 were the best ones. A billion dollar behemoth like M$ should know better ;-)
Windows market share:
https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk…
nrp
This is made worse by Windows 11 retail images being years behind on Wi-Fi drivers. We recommend to customers to use Rufus to create Windows USB installers to bypass the network requirements because Windows 11 doesn’t come with functioning drivers for any of the last few generations of Wi-Fi cards we use.
jmward01
I'm not sure I would start a job that required me to use Windows at this point much less install it on anything in my home.
zeroq
At the same time my graphics card asks me to log in with my facebook account to download an update.
loeg
After that brief golden era of Windows 10 not absolutely sucking, Microsoft is taking the bold stance of making Windows even worse, again.
defrost
Chris Titus and many volunteers have created an open script powershell application that allows modification of most aspects of windows complete with popup help, references, forums, etc.
The "MicroWin" tab allows users to create their own Windows Install disk image version from the official releases .. giving you the reusable install disk of your choosing .. w/out microsoft accounts, telemetry, etc.
https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil
https://christitus.com/windows-utility-improved/
quickslowdown
I really did need a kick in the ass to get Linux on the last machine in my house not running it. I know people say this all the time, I have my own excuses for why I still have 1 windows machine, but it truly just isn't worth it anymore.
driggs
I had to install Windows 11 on a laptop last year, for the first time since win2k. I managed to dodge the online Microsoft account and create a local account, and was proud of myself…
And the installer asks "Enter your name", so I enter "Firstname Lastname".
Now my $HOME directory is `C:UsersFirstname Lastname` with a space character in it!
Ironically, the whole point of the Windows machine was to install ESRI's ArcGIS Pro, which literally cannot handle spaces in filepaths in the year 2025, so I can't reference data or projects from my user's home directory.
pentagrama
Ok and some questions.
You can create a Microsoft account with an alias/temp email and fake data? Or phone verification is required?
And later remove the Microsoft account from the system and switch to a local account?
ziml77
They better give me a way to select my local username then. I always create my user account without an MS account first because the times when I created my Windows account from my MS account it named my user directory as my first name with the final letter missing. It's not even a long name!
anonymousiam
So how will the air-gapped customers use their Windows 11 computers? Has Microsoft decided to abandon their OS sales to governments and security researchers?
cozzyd
This is going to suck for setting up shared lab laptops…
dvno42
So is this Microsoft account requirement a 'home' version thing? I can't imagine they would force this on pro installations. Unattended installs, kiosks, ATMs, display walls, etc. would be a nightmare to deal with this.
jemmyw
How do you provision a Windows machine that isn't tied to a person? I've been using the bypass way for laptops used by sports clubs.
I'd like to switch to using Linux but I haven't been able to overcome some packaging and performance issues yet.
adham-omran
The last 3 times I installed Windows 11 _and_ used an account were a nightmare as for some reason, Microsoft would disable my account for logging in during an install… I avoid Windows like the plague but it's the only place where I can use my audio virtual instruments (No audio production in VMs and I don't own Apple hardware and it'd be ironic for the Windows setup to push me to get an Apple device…)