Press Shift + F10 to launch the command prompt then type in 'OOBE\BYPASSNRO' and press Enter. The system will reboot and you can proceed without a MS account.

Press Shift + F10 to launch the command prompt then type in 'OOBE\BYPASSNRO' and press Enter. The system will reboot and you can proceed without a MS account. I did this a couple of times lately on a bare metal install as well as in a VM.