How Microsoft Made It Harder to Create Windows 10 Local Accounts

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

How Microsoft made it harder to create Windows 10 local accounts

If you're thinking about resetting your Windows PC with a local account, save yourself some frustration and consider upgrading to the Windows 10 May 2019 Update first.

Our experiences with the October 2018 Update nearly convinced us that local accounts were gone for good. They're not, thank goodness, but Out-of-the-Box Experience (OOBE) in that version pushes you particularly hard toward using a Microsoft account. We discovered two workarounds, though, to allow you to log in as you wish.

[...] Over time, Microsoft has tacitly encouraged you ever more to create a Microsoft account, but it's never actually blocked you from creating a local one. It comes damn close in the October 2018 Update, however. Even worse, it begs you to connect your PC to the Internet-but never warns you that once you do, the local account option will never be displayed.

In the May 2019 Update, Microsoft seems to have relaxed its tactics. But only a small fraction of users, or about 6 percent, appear to have access to the friendlier version. That estimate comes from AdDuplex, which tracks versioning as part of its ad network. According to AdDuplex, about a third of Windows users remain on the October 2018 Update, also known as 1809.

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