Microsoft is ruining Windows. It just keeps getting worse. Whether it be their insistence on AI and cloud garbage, or just a general sense of incompetence, I can’t help but feel like the operating system has seen better days.

Normally I wouldn’t care too much, big tech ruins another thing, whatever.

But the problem is Microsoft has such a dominant market share that you can’t really escape them.

I guess unless you use a Mac or something I don’t know.

  • FWIW, you can still press Shift-F10 to open a command prompt, then run oobe\bypassnro. The computer will reboot / restart the setup process and this time there’ll be a small link “I don’t have internet” that’ll allow you to set up a local account.
    Just make very sure not to connect it to the internet (cable or Wi-Fi) before this point.

    There have been rumours of newer versions of Windows 11 not allowing the bypass anymore, but I haven’t personally seen any evidence of this so far.

    Still a shit show though - trickery like this shouldn’t be necessary.