Overview

• The latest Insider Preview releases — Build 26120.6772 (Beta, 24H2) and 26220.6772 (Dev) — remove “local-only” mechanisms from the Windows 11 Out-of-Box Experience.
• Known shortcuts such as start ms-cxh:localonly and the earlier oobe\bypassnro no longer produce a local-account path during setup.
• Testers report that trying these tricks now resets or crashes OOBE, and Microsoft confirms an internet connection and a Microsoft account are required to complete setup.
• More complex workarounds still exist for advanced users — unattended installs, third‑party tools like Rufus, or switching to a local account after setup — while managed enterprise deployments are unaffected.
• The changes are in testing in Dev and Beta builds and reporting suggests they will reach production after further validation, with Microsoft also adding a command-based option to set a custom user folder name during setup.