Microsoft clamps down on Windows 11 users who want local accounts – but this trick still works
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNETMicrosoft has long been battling Windows 11 users who’d rather sign in with a local account than the company’s preferred Microsoft account. And with a couple of its latest salvos, Microsoft is fighting hard to win the war.The first twist concerns an online support page that deals with Windows user accounts. The page in question tries to explain how to add, remove, and otherwise manage an account to sign into Windows. In versions of the page before last week, Microsoft included steps on how to switch from a Microsoft account to a local account. But the latest edition of the page has jettisoned those instructions, as spotted by Neowin.Also: Windows 11 now turns on OneDrive folder backup without your permissionSpecifically, a version of the page from June 12 — seen by Tom’s Hardware via the Wayback Machine — contained the directions on changing from a Microsoft account to a local account. Those steps vanished on June 17 and so far have yet to return. The page does retain the instructions on moving from a local account to a Microsoft account, which the company obviously would encourage.You can still jump from a Microsoft account to a local account in Windows 11, so it’s not as if the capability is gone. But by removing the instructions from its support page, the company seems to want to pretend that the option doesn’t exist or at least doesn’t want to help users looking to make the switch. More
