Report: Microsoft makes it difficult to create local accounts in Windows 10

[Karlston]

Report: Microsoft makes it difficult to create local accounts in Windows 10

Windows admins have options to create local or Microsoft Accounts when it comes to the operating system. The initial setup after installation pushes the Microsoft Account option but it was possible up until now to create to a local account instead. Microsoft has made it more and more difficult to create local accounts during initial setup and discouraged users to do so.

 

A report on Reddit suggests that Microsoft has made it more difficult to create local accounts during first run. The user reported that no option to create a local user account was presented during first run on the system Windows 10 was set up on.

 

The user revealed that he used the Download Tool and that the option to use an offline account was not available on the login screen. Offline account refers to the local account that Windows administrators may create.

 

 

One of the core differences between Microsoft and local accounts is that the former is a cloud-based account while the latter unique to the machine it is created on.

 

A Microsoft Account offers certain advantages such as the ability to use it on multiple machines, access to certain tools and services that require a Microsoft Account, or easier password reset options. The main advantage of a local account is that it is more private and that it cannot be attacked that easily as local access is required to do so.

 

As an added bonus, the username folder reflects the full chosen username and not just the first five letters of the email address used to create the Microsoft Account.

 

Microsoft has a vetted interest in migrating as many customers to Microsoft Accounts as possible as it moves customers closer into the company's ecosystem.

 

The report has to be taken with a grain of salt. While there have been reports about Microsoft hiding the local account creation option before, as early as Windows 10 version 1809 at the least, it is possible that Microsoft is A-B testing the change.

 

What you can do

 

One of the easiest options to overcome the limitation is to cut off the Internet connection during setup. The creation of a Microsoft Account requires an active Internet connection and if Windows 10 recognizes that there is none, it will automatically switch to the creation of  a local account as it is the only possible option to complete setup at that point in time.

 

Doing so will also prevent that certain apps and games such as Candy Crush Saga are made available in Start on first launch.

 

Other options that may be worth investigating are to type in fake phone numbers or email addresses that won't validate to get the local account creation option to display.

 

Another option may be to use a Microsoft Account during initial setup but create a local account right away and start using it exclusively.

 

 

Source:Report: Microsoft makes it difficult to create local accounts in Windows 10 (gHacks - Martin Brinkmann)

 

Companion article posted here... https://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/354600-how-to-create-a-local-account-in-windows-10-1909-if-the-option-is-not-available/

 

[zigzag]

They want more of our data for improving customer experience.

By the way make sure you create local accounts.

With each Windows release the OS become more like a trojan horse.

[zanderthunder]

I prefer local account than Microsoft Account when using Windows. For apps that require Microsoft Account, I still logging in but within the app only. Meaning the sign-in is bounded to the app, and not the whole Windows. 

 

Also, when Windows is under OOBE after you have installing/reformat/resetting your system, make sure that you are staying in offline mode at any means necessary (steps to make the system fully offline during OOBE can be read here). After OOBE, you can safely turn on online connection.

 

p/s: According to a user from MDL Forums, he noticed that 1903/1909 Home SL doesn't offer the option to use a local account when it's connected to the net, when disconnected it offers the local account creation.

[coromonadalix]

Another reason to drift away from microsoft pfff  it never ends,  ill never use any cloud based os'es  or anything who whant to take this direction.

[Sylence]

17 hours ago, zigzag said:

They want more of our data for improving customer experience.

By the way make sure you create local accounts.

With each Windows release the OS become more like a trojan horse.

 

You are using Android or IOS on your mobile phone, they know a lot more about you than Microsoft. better get your priorities right.

 

[dhjohns]

I only use offline accounts for testing, and have always had that option.  For my main drive I use my MS account.  I shun conspiracy theories, and the spying shit is one of them.  Actually if you use a local account, and give/sell your computer to another all the apps you downloaded are tied to the machine forever, and will remain.  That is a lack of privacy, having a local account.  With a MS account your data stays with you.

[zigzag]

nsane says software as it should be.

It is evident that nsane community don't like restrictions in softwares.

Why MS force/tie things on us? dhjohns do you like DRM that much in software?

I don't need always online connectivity to MS. I don't need their universal app nonsense. I don't need their marketing lies.

They destroyed so many data with their Windows 1809 update enforcement.

They didn't learn much from their mistakes. They continue to enforce their crap.

I want to highlight again that i was Windows user since Windows 3.1.

They forced me to leave Windows and use Linux. I don't have money for apple hardware . . .

[steven36]

In the topic  were this article is based on users were  so pissed  they was asking about  what  Linux to  install .🤣

https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/daim1y/ms_has_removed_the_use_offline_account_option/

 

They started this crap in Windows 8.1 trying to hide the offline account  and they just keep getting worse .Just one more step toward 2020 and once they get there billion users  Windows 365 for consumers and charging by the month.

[zigzag]

Sylence

I use classic button based phone not smart phone. I don't think they collected any data from my phone cause there is no internet connectivity in that phone. I get what you say cause when i need to buy a new phone there will be only smart devices i can choose from . . .

[steven36]

Microsoft Needs to Stop Screwing With Local Accounts in Windows 10

 

 

 

When Microsoft launched Windows 10 back in 2015, it offered the option to use an online account instead of a local computer account. Four years later, it’s clear the company wishes it had never done this. For nearly half a decade, Microsoft has made a variety of changes to the Windows setup process, including repeatedly rewording the option to create a local account or hiding it altogether, as it did with the Windows 10 1809 Update.

 

Windows 1903 dialed the hiding back after user outcry, but now Microsoft is at it again. Attempt to set up an account on the latest version of Windows, and you’ll be greeted by the following:

 

 

 

 

“Domain join instead” is now offered where “Create a Local Account” once sat, as Hot Hardware has covered. This is not a one-time change that Microsoft made. This is not a test. This is an ongoing blatant attempt to gaslight and annoy users into creating the account type that Microsoft prefers they use rather than the account type they might want.

 

I am not going to bother going through the differences between an online, Microsoft-hosted account and a local account. Those differences have absolutely nothing to do with how Microsoft is repeatedly sabotaging and changing the mechanism for selecting a local account as opposed to an online one. The only point in play here is the fact that some users want local accounts and Microsoft very obviously does not want people to have local accounts. Whether because of legacy applications, corporate demands, or IT security requirements, it is apparently necessary for offline accounts to remain possible, but the company clearly doesn’t want them to be used.

 

This is what is known as a “dark pattern.” In the context of a UI, humans use patterns to look for recognizable elements and clues about how things function. A dark pattern, therefore, is a pattern purposefully designed to obfuscate and hide valuable information, in the hopes that people will not figure out how to use the application properly. A company with a permission form that switches from opt-out checkboxes to opt-in checkboxes in the same document is using a simple type of dark pattern. Displaying checkboxes that are grayed-out so as to appear un-selectable would be another hypothetical dark pattern — a user might not even attempt to click into them, assuming that because they are grayed-out, they are unusable.

 

Image: A classic dark pattern. The top section is opt-out, the following is opt-in. If you only read the top section, you’ll opt-in to the following section below it and receive information from third parties you did not wish to receive.

 

 

Dark patterns are tricks. They hide the truth in a deliberate way while preserving plausible deniability. A number of web services use these sorts of tricks to lock you into subscribing to newsletters, signing up for more expensive services, or otherwise handing over data and personal information. Microsoft is using them to lock you into the kind of account it wants you to have.

 

The phrase “Domain join instead” is incomprehensible to the majority of individual users setting up their PCs. A small group of people will know that domains have something to do with corporate accounts and will choose not to explore this option out of the mistaken belief that the information it contains isn’t applicable to them. Most people will conclude that “Domain join instead” and “Use a local account” have nothing to do with each other exactly as Microsoft intends because Microsoft has hidden account options behind words that most people do not associate with the process of creating a local account. People are far more familiar with the idea of online versus offline than they are with the idea of a “domain joined” account versus an “online” account. The only reason to make a change like this is to deliberately harm end-user understanding.

 

Microsoft talks a big game about making Windows more intuitive and approachable. Perhaps the company should amend its marketing to make it clear that it can only be trusted not to misrepresent the contents of dialog menus when you are using its software in the manner it prefers.

 

It would be one thing if this was the first time Microsoft had changed this option. It isn’t. The company has previously removed it altogether, forcing end-users to disconnect from the internet or repeatedly enter bad email addresses in order to restore it. The company has already demonstrated profound bad faith on this point.

 

There’s already anecdotal information this latest dark pattern is working. On HotHardware, user TheEgg writes: “I was actually dealing with this over the weekend while setting up a PC for a family friend. Sat there for a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how to bypass needing to create a dummy MS account; eventually turned off the PC to be solved later.”

 

There is no justification for this repeated obfuscation. At best, it speaks to the colossal arrogance of a corporation who believes it knows better than its own users what settings they ought to use and is willing to tiptoe up to outright lying to force end-users to do its bidding. At worst, it magnifies every single accusation of bad faith leveled against Microsoft and its data collection and privacy practices as they concern Windows 10. I have tried to strike a middle ground on these issues by criticizing Microsoft strongly when I felt it made mistakes but also acknowledging when the company made moves that were friendlier to privacy and reduced data collection. It is much harder to do so when the company continues to make decisions that hide these basic choices.

 

Microsoft either needs to have the guts to remove the local account option altogether — and deal with the blowback it’ll deservedly get — or stop trying to hide important configuration options behind layers of obfuscating bullshit. It is long past time to cease this half-measure sabotage and provide people with a reasonable setup experience that doesn’t play “Hide the options” with the customer base.

 

No, the fact that Microsoft is hiding options and playing cute with its UI during setup doesn’t mean the company is harvesting PII (personally identifiable information) from customer data. The problem — which evidently hasn’t percolated its way up to the C-suites just yet — is that every time the company pulls this stunt, it convinces a segment of the population that they are willing to do nastier things. Given the flood of data breaches and deliberately poor practices pouring out of Silicon Valley like the breached dam of the world’s largest sewage-treatment facility, I can’t blame them.

 

But I’m tired of writing articles about how Microsoft is once more screwing with its customers, only to turn around in days to months and write Yet Another Article about how no, Microsoft has “learned” things now and become a kinder, gentler, company. It would be nice to make it through a six month period without having to write any articles about nasty, consumer-hostile actions Microsoft has taken like this one. Evidently, the company actually learned nothing from its Get Windows 10 debacle.

 

Microsoft’s motivations are irrelevant. What matters is how this constant stream of changes has played in the community, and the overwhelming response from the community is that it knows exactly what Microsoft is playing here and doesn’t like it one bit.

 

Knock it off. I’d like to stop using this stupid image of a corrupt salesman. I’d like to stop writing articles about how, once again, Microsoft is screwing with its users. I’d like to focus on the technical improvements and enhancements to the OS rather than things that go perennially wrong. Software bugs are a fact of life in any application. These aren’t bugs. They’re deliberate attempts to mislead people.

 

Microsoft is clearly trying to force people into using non-local accounts without actually going so far as to remove the option. The company refuses to have an honest discussion about its own use of dark patterns to achieve this goal. That’s all the reason I personally need to never use an online Microsoft account. Any company working this hard to seize access to user data doesn’t deserve it.

 

Source