3 ms·

What edition of Windows 11 are you using? I hear this a lot about the online account requirement but on my versions (Pro and Enterprise) you just select “Domain

What edition of Windows 11 are you using? I hear this a lot about the online account requirement but on my versions (Pro and Enterprise) you just select “Domain Join” and it bypasses the online account requirement. My guess is that a lot of people are using the crappy Home edition.

whalesalad 3y ago
Pro https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-witho...
theryan 3y ago
I'm confused by that as well. I've setup multiple machines this past year with Windows 11 and they are all just straight up local accounts.
toast0 3y ago
> My guess is that a lot of people are using the crappy Home edition. What makes Home crappy? Other than the account thing, obviously. You can't join a domain with it either, but then most people don't have a domain at home. There's some other disabled features, like Hyper-V, but why should people have to pay for a higher tier Windows to use a local account if they don't need the other features?
- whalesalad 3y ago
  I want to say RDP is limited to higher trims. I don’t think you can Remote Desktop to home. But otherwise I agree with your points.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Yeah, that seems familiar, but RDP hosting seems like another feature many people can live without / can mostly replace with other software for ocassional use.
    - fuzzfactor 3y ago
      With Home: you also don't have Bitlocker no Group Policy no Active Directory
- runjake 3y ago
  - Hyper-V - RDP - Windows Sandbox (super neat and useful and under-appreciated!) - BitLocker - Active Directory - Local accounts, apparently - Various other little things and some local policies. I use all of the above Pro-only stuff. If my use of "crappy" offended you, please substitute the term "less-featureful". Other than that, I didn't say what Microsoft should or shouldn't do for home users. That's on you. It's my personal belief that multiple Windows 11 editions are insulting, and it should just be a single OS edition, with all features available, across the board.
drbawb 3y ago
I did three installs of Pro this year. Two of them required hacks to force local account creation because the motherboard (Asus) ships with a _literal rootkit_ that injects a wireless driver that Windows itself does not ship with. So you either have to disable that in firmware before first boot to Windows OOBE, or run the BypassNRO cmdlet from a hidden shell to convince it that you do not, in fact, have internet access. I tried to domain join the third device to see what that flow is like. It asks: 1. Personal use / Work or School 2. You are asked to login to Azure AD. You have to click a small (10pt?) link for "Sign-in options." with no indication that will let you join to the domain. 3. Pick "Domain Join instead" 4. It asks you to setup a local account ("Even better, use an online account" :-) 5. _You finish setup without the device actually being joined to the domain!?_ 6a. You now have to login (click) 6b. and go to the system settings (click) 6c. go to accounts (click, ad for M365), 6d. go to "Connect to work or school" (click), 6e. click another "Connect" button with no indication that it will join it to a domain,, 6f. Click another small link for "Join this device to a local Active Directory domain" to domain join the PC. So, I'm sorry, but if you think the Pro SKU is better in this regard you are just incorrect. There is no excuse for these dark patterns, this is user-hostile behavior designed to convert you to being recurring SaaS revenue and not retail revenue. As an added bonus I just tried to create a Windows 11 VM in hyper-v to confirm my memory, and _Microsoft Hyper-V_ doesn't even correctly configure itself to allow Windows installation to proceed by default. (Secure Boot enabled, but no vTPM.) It then proceeded to download updates to the installer and reboot without a prompt or any option to skip it. Microsoft _clearly does not give a shit_ about the OOBE if you are not using their cloud services.

whalesalad 3y ago

Pro https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-witho...

theryan 3y ago

I'm confused by that as well. I've setup multiple machines this past year with Windows 11 and they are all just straight up local accounts.

toast0 3y ago

> My guess is that a lot of people are using the crappy Home edition. What makes Home crappy? Other than the account thing, obviously. You can't join a domain with it either, but then most people don't have a domain at home. There's some other disabled features, like Hyper-V, but why should people have to pay for a higher tier Windows to use a local account if they don't need the other features?

whalesalad 3y ago
I want to say RDP is limited to higher trims. I don’t think you can Remote Desktop to home. But otherwise I agree with your points.
- toast0 3y ago
  Yeah, that seems familiar, but RDP hosting seems like another feature many people can live without / can mostly replace with other software for ocassional use.
  - fuzzfactor 3y ago
    With Home: you also don't have Bitlocker no Group Policy no Active Directory
runjake 3y ago
- Hyper-V - RDP - Windows Sandbox (super neat and useful and under-appreciated!) - BitLocker - Active Directory - Local accounts, apparently - Various other little things and some local policies. I use all of the above Pro-only stuff. If my use of "crappy" offended you, please substitute the term "less-featureful". Other than that, I didn't say what Microsoft should or shouldn't do for home users. That's on you. It's my personal belief that multiple Windows 11 editions are insulting, and it should just be a single OS edition, with all features available, across the board.

drbawb 3y ago

I did three installs of Pro this year. Two of them required hacks to force local account creation because the motherboard (Asus) ships with a _literal rootkit_ that injects a wireless driver that Windows itself does not ship with. So you either have to disable that in firmware before first boot to Windows OOBE, or run the BypassNRO cmdlet from a hidden shell to convince it that you do not, in fact, have internet access. I tried to domain join the third device to see what that flow is like. It asks: 1. Personal use / Work or School 2. You are asked to login to Azure AD. You have to click a small (10pt?) link for "Sign-in options." with no indication that will let you join to the domain. 3. Pick "Domain Join instead" 4. It asks you to setup a local account ("Even better, use an online account" :-) 5. _You finish setup without the device actually being joined to the domain!?_ 6a. You now have to login (click) 6b. and go to the system settings (click) 6c. go to accounts (click, ad for M365), 6d. go to "Connect to work or school" (click), 6e. click another "Connect" button with no indication that it will join it to a domain,, 6f. Click another small link for "Join this device to a local Active Directory domain" to domain join the PC. So, I'm sorry, but if you think the Pro SKU is better in this regard you are just incorrect. There is no excuse for these dark patterns, this is user-hostile behavior designed to convert you to being recurring SaaS revenue and not retail revenue. As an added bonus I just tried to create a Windows 11 VM in hyper-v to confirm my memory, and _Microsoft Hyper-V_ doesn't even correctly configure itself to allow Windows installation to proceed by default. (Secure Boot enabled, but no vTPM.) It then proceeded to download updates to the installer and reboot without a prompt or any option to skip it. Microsoft _clearly does not give a shit_ about the OOBE if you are not using their cloud services.