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I’ve written earlier than about my nostalgia for the Home windows XP- or Home windows 7-era “clear set up,” when you may considerably enhance any given pre-made PC merely by taking an official direct-from-Microsoft Home windows set up disk and blowing away the manufacturing facility set up, ridding your self of 60-day antivirus trials, WildTangent video games, outdated drivers, and no matter different software program your PC maker threw on it to assist subsidize its value.
You’ll be able to nonetheless try this with Home windows 11—in reality, it is significantly simpler than it was in these ’00s variations of Home windows, with a number of official Microsoft-sanctioned methods to obtain and create an set up disk, one thing you used to wish to amass by yourself. However the ensuing Home windows set up is loads much less “clear” than it was once, given the continuous creep of latest Microsoft apps and companies into increasingly more components of the core Home windows expertise.
I continuously write about Home windows, Edge, and different Microsoft-adjacent applied sciences as a part of my day job, and I signal into my daily-use PCs with a Microsoft account, so my utilization patterns could also be atypical for a lot of Ars Technica readers. However for anybody who makes use of Home windows, Edge, or each, I assumed it may be helpful to element what I am doing to wash up a clear set up of Home windows, minimizing (if not completely eliminating) the variety of annoying notifications, Microsoft companies, and unasked-for apps that we’ve got to take care of.
That stated, that is not a information about making a minimally stripped-down, telemetry-free model of Home windows that removes something apart from what Microsoft means that you can take away. There are many experimental hacks devoted to that type of factor—NTDev’s Tiny11 venture is one—however eradicating built-in Home windows parts may cause sudden compatibility and safety issues, and Tiny11 has traditionally had points with fundamental table-stakes stuff like “putting in safety updates.”
Avoiding Microsoft account sign-in
Probably the most contentious a part of Home windows 11’s setup course of relative to earlier Home windows variations is that it mandates Microsoft account sign-in, with not one of the readily obvious “restricted account” fallbacks that existed in Home windows 10. As of Home windows 11 22H2, that is true of each the House and Professional editions.
There are two causes I can consider to not check in with a Microsoft account. The primary is that you really want nothing to do with a Microsoft account, thanks very a lot. Signing in makes you extra of a goal for Microsoft 365, OneDrive, or Recreation Go subscription upsells since all you want to do is add them to an account that already exists, and Home windows setup will provide subscriptions to every if you happen to check in first.
The second—which is my state of affairs—is that you just do use a Microsoft account as a result of it gives some helpful advantages like automated encryption of your native drive (having these encryption keys saved to my account has saved me a few occasions) or syncing of browser information and a few preferences. However you do not need to check in at setup, both since you’re simply testing one thing otherwise you choose your consumer folder to be positioned at “C:UsersAndrew” reasonably than “C:Customers.”
No matter your reasoning, if you happen to do not need to hassle with sign-in at setup, you’ve two choices (three for Home windows 11 Professional customers):
Use the command line
Throughout Home windows 11 Setup, after choosing a language and keyboard format however earlier than connecting to a community, hit Shift+F10 to open the command immediate. Kind OOBEBYPASSNRO, hit Enter, and anticipate the PC to reboot.
When it comes again, click on “I haven’t got Web” on the community setup display, and you will have recovered the choice to make use of “restricted setup” (aka a neighborhood account) once more, like older variations of Home windows 10 and 11 provided.
For Home windows 11 Professional
Home windows 11 Professional customers, take a journey with me.
Proceed via the Home windows 11 setup as you usually would, together with connecting to a community and permitting the system to test for updates. Finally, you may be requested whether or not you are setting your PC up for private use or for “work or faculty.”
Choose the work or faculty choice, then sign-in choices, at which level you may lastly be requested whether or not you propose to affix the PC to a site. Inform it you’re (despite the fact that you are not), and you will see the conventional workflow for making a “restricted” native account.
This one will not work if you happen to do not need to begin your relationship with a brand new pc by mendacity to it, nevertheless it additionally would not require going to the command line.
