It's been a few years since I've needed to install a version of Windows on a PC for personal use. I have a license for Windows 10 Pro, but today I found out it is no longer possible to get through the installation without first creating an account with Microsoft.
I don't want to do this. Does anybody have any way to get around it? The stuff I've read online basically ends up being create your account switch to a local account after installation and delete your account. I want a better solution. Would installing a much older version of Windows 10 work? The whole reason I got an msdn license back in the day is so I didn't have to do this.
Edit: 10/2/2023
I thank you all for giving me advice and ideas. Much I had already tried before posting my question here, and some suggestions and experiences led me to keep at it. Here's my experience for others who have a similar problem.
I downloaded the ISO from Microsoft - Win10_22H2_English_x64v1. I used Ventoy to launch the installer. The first time I went through, I connected to Wi-Fi. As soon as I did that, it sealed my fate. By this time in the process, it installed the boot partition on my HD and saved this information so every time I tried to restart the installer, it always went through language, keyboard, then "enter email address". All the suggestions for fake values simply triggered "This email is already used. Please choose another", and that was it.
I was getting ready to wipe the partition and try again, but decided to turn off Wi-Fi in the BIOS first to see if that worked. It did. This time it tried to convince me to set up the network and failed and I was able to create a local account.
The way this multi-version installer works is annoying. It installed Windows Home edition, so I had to "know" that I could go to settings and enter a key. Once I put in the key, it "upgraded" to Pro edition, and I was done.
Next time I have to do this, I'll see if Rufus works. It seems that will remove some annoyance. Either way, I will avoid configuring Wi-Fi until after install next time. I gotta say, I am not looking forward to the day when I must upgrade to Windows 11. So far I've been able to avoid actually buying a new copy due to my aging MSDN key. By the time I'm forced to "upgrade", I might have to cough up some cash for something I don't want, but am forced to own.
It should be illegal.
Anyway, now that I know I can still use my MSDN key to get an updated Win 10, I feel a bit more comfortable with re-imaging my Dell laptop from dual-boot to Linux only, then install Windows as a VM for these times I need to use it. Fortunately, that is increasingly rare.
I forget the command, but you can leave the internet off and run a command in the cmd prompt to disable the requirement.
That did not work for me, and it was listed for Windows 11.
I tried this just last week with windows 11, successfully:
Disconnect internet, run installation until I needed to connect to the internet.
Shift + F10 to open terminal
Enter the command: OOBE\BYPASSNRO
It restarted install and the "skip now" option appeared to connect online, allowing for an offline account creation.
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account
Edit: I now read you are using windows 10 and not 11, not sure if this will work...
It did not, but thanks for the effort!
Go through the account login, put a@a.com for user and something random for the pass. It should try to do something and then say something like Account disabled blah blah create a local account
"a@a.com is already a Microsoft account. Please try a different email address", so it doesn't work.
You need to use sign in instead of sign up, it won't login at all and drop you to the screen to make a local account
From what I'm seeing you should be able to bypass it just by keeping it offline. I know with 11 once it made me try to login then basically said screw it make a local instead when I had the laptop on airplane mode
Good luck