News

Microsoft Tightens Windows 11 Setup To Enforce Online Accounts

The tech giant is making moves to shut down the remaining workarounds that let users skip online sign-in during Windows 11 setup.

Published

8 months ago

October 7, 2025

Nour Nasir

microsoft tightens windows 11 setup to enforce online accounts

Microsoft is closing the last gaps that allowed Windows 11 to be installed without a Microsoft account or internet connection. The latest Insider build disables long-used tricks for creating local accounts during setup, tightening a requirement that has frustrated privacy-focused users since Windows 11 launched.

Amanda Langowski, head of the Windows Insider Program, said Microsoft is “removing known mechanisms for creating a local account in the Windows Setup experience (OOBE),” warning that these bypasses can skip “critical setup screens” and leave devices incomplete.

The update extends a series of steps Microsoft has taken over the past year to tie Windows installations to its cloud ecosystem. The company already removed the “bypassnro” command earlier in 2024. The new build now blocks the “start ms-cxh:localonly” command, which users discovered soon after the first fix. Attempting it now simply resets the setup process instead of moving past the account requirement.

For years, these commands were shared across forums and IT circles as an easy workaround to install Windows 11 Pro or Home offline. Removing them means users who want a purely local profile will need to rely on more complex setup files or post-install tweaks.

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Some users turn to local accounts to keep work and personal devices separate or to avoid syncing data across Microsoft’s services. Others simply want to name their main user folder without Windows generating it from their email address. Microsoft has added a narrow option for that: a command that lets users rename the folder during setup, though it remains buried in command-line tools.

The shift marks a broader move to anchor Windows 11 inside Microsoft’s identity and cloud framework — one that streamlines management for enterprises but leaves individual users with less control over how their devices start up.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.