If you’ve ever had to install Windows, you’d know that sometimes it asks you to sign in with your Microsoft account. With Windows 10, that was if you had a Home licence and already connected your device to the internet. You could still avoid that by skipping the network connection step and creating a local account. Pro licence holders have always been able to create local accounts. That’s about to change.
Windows 11 will soon force all users, even Pro licence holders, to connect to the internet and sign in with a Microsoft account. The announcement blog post for the build details exactly that, “Similar to Windows 11 Home edition, Windows 11 Pro edition now requires internet connectivity during the initial device setup (OOBE) only.”
Why, Microsoft, why?
There aren’t many people that were asking for this. And plenty of people will hate Windows (even more) for this change. Of course, Microsoft will tell you this is all for your own safety, it’s far more secure this way and to stop asking questions.
Read more: Can your PC run Windows 11? Now you can find out
But the fact is if you find yourself in the position of having to install Windows more than once, this will make your life very difficult. Imagine you’ve just reloaded Windows onto an old (but still compatible) laptop. If that laptop doesn’t have an ethernet port or the correct Wi-Fi drivers, you will have a tough time doing anything.
There were loads of other features in this build as well. Some of them even looked good, like the Start menu update. But none of them are drawing as much attention as this one.
