You can operate without a local account - source, I‘m on Windows 11 and I‘ve never had a Microsoft account - but it‘s a massive PITA and takes a lot of playing around and disconnecting from the internet during install, and stuff like that.
You‘re right that 99% of people won‘t know/won‘t bother to go through the hassle and that Microsoft through the years have been making it harder and harder to have a local account, but at the moment it‘s still technically possible.
Apparently my Microsoft account is some bullshit one I made for Xbox in 2006 and it thinks I’m a made up name from that time, which is pretty funny to me literally everytime I reset my PC … Which because I use win 11 is way more often than it should be
You can operate without a local account - source, I‘m on Windows 11 and I‘ve never had a Microsoft account - but it‘s a massive PITA and takes a lot of playing around and disconnecting from the internet during install, and stuff like that.
You‘re right that 99% of people won‘t know/won‘t bother to go through the hassle and that Microsoft through the years have been making it harder and harder to have a local account, but at the moment it‘s still technically possible.
Apparently my Microsoft account is some bullshit one I made for Xbox in 2006 and it thinks I’m a made up name from that time, which is pretty funny to me literally everytime I reset my PC … Which because I use win 11 is way more often than it should be