When you configure your PC, Windows now requires you to use a Microsoft account. But there is a simple trick to get around this obligation. And not everyone knows it.
Elon Musk, the exuberant boss of Tesla and SpaceX, is used to rants and bloodshed on social networks, networks on which he never misses an opportunity to make his opinion or his discontent known. A few months ago, the new technology mogul railed against Windows on his favorite platform, X (formerly Twitter, which he bought in 2022 before renaming it). In a post published on February 25, 2024, the billionaire said that after buying a new PC, he discovered to his great surprise that he had to create a Microsoft account to be able to use it, asking in passing if it was the case for everyone.
An astonishing surprise since this requirement is not new. In fact, for several years now, Microsoft has required you to create an account to use its operating system. And preferably a Microsoft account. When starting a new PC for the first time or reinstalling Windows, the setup wizard asks you to connect to an existing Microsoft account or create one, without offering any other option to continue the process.
Certainly, using a Microsoft account offers many advantages such as free online storage space on OneDrive, sharing data and files between several devices or even access to free versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But this obligation is not to everyone’s taste, especially since connecting to a Microsoft account allows the company to track its users across their different devices and their activities.
However, there is a very simple trick to get around this constraint to use Windows, which Elon seems not to know (or pretends not to know). While some recommend disconnecting your computer from the Internet when installing Windows, this is not practical because it is not easy to disable the Wi-Fi card built into a laptop, for example. A much simpler method is to log in with a Microsoft account… which doesn’t exist!
During the Windows setup process, when you arrive at the “Add your Microsoft account” screen, simply enter a non-existent address, such as [email protected]and an equally nonexistent password, such as 0. When you click on the button Followinga message will tell you that an error has occurred… and will suggest that you continue using a local account! All you have to do is choose a user name, a password to open Windows and three secret questions to answer in case you forget your password.
Although this tip is disconcertingly easy, we can regret that Microsoft no longer offers an explicit option to install Windows with a local account and seeks to force the hand of users to connect with an online account. This strategy to make its customers captive to its ecosystem did not come out of nowhere. It is directly inspired by the practices of another major player: Apple. The brand with the bitten apple has in fact required for ages the use of an Apple account to use its computers, without this obligation raising any protest among its aficionados. A surprising difference in perception, which some will perhaps justify by Apple’s allegedly virtuous management of personal data, but which above all reminds us that with cleverly crafted marketing, a user retention policy ends up seeming acceptable.
