> I don't know if there's something special about the Surface for this but during a regular Windows installation, if there is no Internet connection it offers y

> I don't know if there's something special about the Surface for this but during a regular Windows installation, if there is no Internet connection it offers you the option to create a local-only account. A new windows 11 install (non pro, donwloaded from the ms website) will never allow this. You'd have to do command line trickery or physically remove all network cards. I found this out the hard way and got myself a cheap pro key instead, which still requires trickery but less.