On Windows 10 Home, in latest releases, you actually need to disconnect the cable to get the move on without a Microsoft account links to show up. Word on the street is Windows 11 is going to make them actually mandatory on Home, instead of only pretend mandatory with lots of prompting.

Unless it changed very recently you can also enter a bogus email address several times. Not that that is much better.

No, it is not. Apple does encourage setting up/associating an Apple ID account, it is not a requirement.

I don't know about windows, but the comment you're replying to says microsoft encourages you to set up a online account (which I suspect most people outside of a domain would actually want), but allows you to set up a local account.

Yes it's a Dark UI pattern, but I have a feeling Apple do the same thing (I haven't set an apple laptop up for 8 years so my memory is vague)

Is that incorrect?

It's possible to use the iCloud password instead of your local account password, but it's very opt-in and not at all suggested by default. Signing into iCloud doesn't replace anything about your local accounts besides that.

>but allows you to set up a local account

Not on Windows 11 Home, using an online account has become mandatory.

>Yes it's a Dark UI pattern, but I have a feeling Apple do the same thing

Skipping it is a little clearer in macOS.

According the article, come Windows 11 that will be incorrect.

It's an opinion piece written for clicks. Time will tell if it's right or not.

Both Microsoft's official communication and the leaked beta indicate that Windows 11 will require this.

God damn it how many times I have to say it: it's not required on Windows as well! You click cancel, then click tiny link at bottom to create local account. You are talking about things you have no idea about man.

In the latest releases of Win 10 Home, at least once you have connected to the network, that button does not exist. They prompt you to enter your WiFi info first, then ask you to log in. And once you have entered the WiFi info you cannot get back to that screen and remove it until after you have set everything up. At least not without a factory reset, which I didn't actually try.

They force you to log in with a MS account during the initial setup then once you are in you can add a local admin account. Then you can log into it and remove the MS account. Its absolutely horrible.

I have been dealing with this a lot lately, had several laptops that were Home and could not get in to them without the MS account. Its a huge pain.

It seems you'll have to say it many times more untill this dark pattern will be removed. Apple uses the same teqchinque to trick you into using iCloud making it look like requrement for use your iPhone. For my taste it is cheating and dsigusting because even when you know it can be avoided you should work hard to find it especially when you are in a hurry and this trouble is by "design".

The article is saying that it's going to be mandatory for the new home version of Windows.

You can say it however many times you want, but you are wrong. You would have been right had you been talking about Windows 10 Home ~1-2 years ago.

But today, Windows 10 Home only gives you the option to login with a local account if you are offline (no cable, no WiFi) or you fail to login to an MS account multiple times. Only in one of those cases do they give you a small, relatively hidden option to use the local account.

If so many people are directly contradicting you, you may want to put in a bit more research instead of relying on possibly outdated experience.

I can set up and sign in to MacOS without using my Apple ID though.

Correct me if i'm wrong but I think you still need to go online to finish the setup process?

No, you don't need to.

There is zero-touch enterprise provisioning available, that requires you to be connected to a suitably configured local network (if learns about what it needs from dhcp tags), but this is not something that normal users need to be concerned about. For a non-MDM-managed mac, you can do everything offline just fine. Or you can be online, if you do not want to use iCloud account (I'm not using it either), you can finish the OOBE wizard and everything will be just like the user wants.

I'm pretty sure you don't need a network connection to set up a mac unless this has changed in recent releases.

Apparently in Windows 11 they removed that loophole, and now you require an internet connection at least once during setup to proceed.

Windows 11 Home only. Pro, Enterprise, and Education don't have this requirement.

Are any of these freely sold to individuals, or do you only get them as part of larger deals?

Pro is sold to individuals and you can easily get a laptop with a Pro license from an OEM.

Seems like there's also Pro for Workstations. Also, full disk encryption seems to only be available in Pro?

Yes. Well, BitLocker is in Pro, Pro for Workstations and Enterprise. Same for Hyper-V, if that matters to you; not available in Home.

Home edition is for non-commercial use. I don't know if that's in the EULA or not, but that's the use case that Home is meant for.

Pro and higher are for work use cases, and features add on as you go up the line. Pro for Workstations and Enterprise support slightly different feature sets, IIRC. Creating new ReFS filesystems is only available on Pro for Workstations, for example.

The other benefits of Pro for Workstations is a higher RAM limit (2TB vs 6TB) and socket count (2 CPU sockets vs 4 CPU sockets), NVDIMM-N support, and SMB Direct. Not normally features that would be missed on a normal PC.