Bypass Windows 11 Microsoft Account requirement during initial setup

Modified on Thu, 30 Jan at 12:12 PM

Ref: https://wilkinsit.ca/pc/bypass-windows-11-microsoft-account-requirement-during-initial-setup/

When setting up a new Windows 11 computer, it’s generally required that you sign in or create a Microsoft account in order to complete the set up. There are some cases where you may want to avoid linking to an online account like this – you can use this article as a guide for how to bypass this requirement. This method has been tested and confirmed to work as of September 2024.

Boot the computer normally and wait for the first window of the Windows 11 initial set up
Press Shift+F10 on the keyboard to bring up a command prompt window
Enter the following command in the command prompt window and press Enter: OOBE\BYPASSNRO
The computer will reboot, wait until it’s back to the initial set up screen
Once the initial set up screen is back, if you’re using a wired connection you will need to complete some additional steps (alternatively you can disconnect your computer from the ethernet cable and go to step 9)
Press Shift+F10 and enter this command in the prompt to show your network interfaces:
netsh interface show interface
Identify the interface name from the previous command and substitute it into the following command in place of INTERFACE_NAME_HERE:
netsh interface set interface name=”INTERFACE_NAME_HERE” admin=DISABLED
Close the command prompt window, then continue with the initial set up
You will eventually get to a screen that asks you to connect to a network, but now you will have the option to click I don’t have internet – click on that option. Then click Continue with limited setup to proceed
Continue the rest of the setup how you normally would to create a local account, eventually you will get to the desktop. Once you’re on the desktop you can reconnect to the internet
If you used the netsh command above instead of physically disconnecting the cable from your computer, then you can use the following instructions to enable your network adapter again. Press Win+X and click Windows PowerShell (Admin) which will open a PowerShell window, enter the following command in the window while substituting INTERFACE_NAME_HERE with the actual interface name you used earlier:
netsh interface set interface name=”INTERFACE_NAME_HERE” admin=ENABLED

Bypass Windows 11 Microsoft Account requirement during initial setup

Step 3

Step 6

Step 9