Microsoft is tightening its grip on the Windows 11 installation process, increasingly pushing users towards using a Microsoft account. A recent official blog post accompanying the latest Insider Preview Build 26200.5516 announces the removal of the “bypassnro.cmd” script, a previously used workaround to circumvent the online account requirement. Microsoft justifies this move to enhance Windows 11 security and user experience. However, other ways exist to re-enable the bypass for users who prefer offline accounts.

This change, announced on a blog post (via Tom's Hardware), follows Microsoft's earlier removal of a more straightforward method to bypass the online account setup, which involved entering an invalid email address during the installation. With the latest Insider Preview Build, attempting to use the “Shift + F10” followed by “OOBE/BYPASSNRO” command to bypass the online account requirement results in an error message, indicating that the command is no longer recognised. To restore this functionality, users must now delve into the Windows registry.

However, as explained by BobPony.com, this command can be re-enabled by opening a command prompt during the initial setup (by pressing Shift + F10) and entering the following command:

RegAdd "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE" /v BypassNRO /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
shutdown /r /t 0

After a system restart, the “OOBE/BYPASSNRO” method will function again, allowing installation without a Microsoft Account.

A shorter, alternative method to bypass the Microsoft Account requirement shared by Wither orNot consists of opening the command prompt (Shift + F10) during the installation process and executing the command “start ms-cxh:localonly”.

Given Microsoft's history, it's reasonable to expect further modifications to prevent bypassing the Microsoft account requirement. This cat-and-mouse game may continue, potentially making using tools like Rufus that circumvent the online account requirement a more reliable long-term solution.

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KitGuru says: Have you ever bypassed the Microsoft account requirement when installing Windows? What method do you usually use?

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