Bypassing the Windows 11 OOBE

Starting from the discussion on the X post below:

I personally made a provisioning package with Windows Configuration Designer that is intercepting the OOBE, creates a local account and presents the Desktop. I have it on a stick, plug it and it is done.

— Valentin Văleanu (@vali_valeanu) June 3, 2024

I was struggling with Microsoft's agressive push to force users to create Microsoft accounts and at that time there was a "hack" to bypass the OOBE, press Shift-F10 to open Command Prompt and type:

oobe\bypassnro

This method might be a bit challenging for non technical people and Microsoft can remove it anytime.

A more elegant and unattended method is to use Provisioning Packages.

We will need a free tool from Microsoft called Windows Configuration Designer. While this tool can provide advanced configurations, in this case we will only build a package to rename the device and create a local account with the scope of bypass-ing the online account requirement in OOBE.

1. Click on Provision desktop devices and give your project a name

2. Setting up the device name (required). You can choose any Device name

3. Setup the local account

Now it is the time to build the package:

Now, the package is ready. Just drop it on the root of a USB stick and wait for the process to finish.

If you want to use mine you can download from here (local account credentials: local\local).

If you use the package do not forget to delete or change the credentials of the local account!