Heads up, everyone. The latest Windows 11 Preview build (26200.5516) loses the bypassnro script. It’s to ensure every Win11 install is forcibly tied to a Microsoft account, whether you like it or not uh “enhance security and user experience”. Yeah, that’s it…probably.
Buried somewhat deeply in the release notes:
For now you can still add the BypassNRO regkey manually, accomplishing the same end. Who wants to bet that’ll be the next thing to go?
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Rod-IT
(Rod-IT)
2
There are still ways to bypass this, even after they block the key and it will mostly only affect consumers.
Business that use AD wont be affected nor will those who use AzureAD or hybrid joined.
Not sure I understand why myself they are doing this, if you buy the license and want to use it offline, that should be a choice for the end user, however warn them doing so may be less secure, but let them decide. Perhaps ask them some questions pre-registration which helps understand if a local account makes sense or not.
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Can you please elaborate? On the latest Win11 Pro machine I provisioned it didn’t seem at all obvious how to get past the “connect” screen in OOBE. There was (to my recollection) no “I’m using a local domain/AD” option until after running BypassNRO.
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Phil7965
(Phil7965)
4
So, let me get this straight: If you have limited/no access to Internet, or have no desire at all to use an online account, you can’t use the OS at all?
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Control Panel
Windows 11 started phasing out some features of the classic Control Panel, replacing them with the modern Settings app. Eventually, we might see more of the Control Panel vanish, or many of its options could be hidden or harder to access. Like the “Device and Printer” personally i hate that change…
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Rod-IT
(Rod-IT)
6
Can you share a screenshot of what you see?
There is usually a domain option during setup, often in the bottom left corner (though I would advise unplugging the nic or not connecting to Wi-Fi as the options may be different).
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I’m glad I’m all Linux at home now. Screw Microsoft and the horse they rode in on. I can’t abide by any company that wants your personal information that badly.
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somedude2
(somedude2)
8
There may also be an anti piracy motivation, it is a lot harder to use a bootleg copy if it phones home…
Mostly tho, I think MS vision of the future is a computer that is essentially a terminal server client connected to their cloud..
You just KNOW they are still pissed about microsoft phone flop 
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No screenshots available at present but I’ll be setting up another Win11 workstation soon and will update here. As a rule I do not connect to LAN during setup and haven’t since Microsoft began this garbage.
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This is kind of a non-issue though. Win11 will run unlicensed indefinitely and would attempt to activate online as soon as a network connection is detected later.
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somedude2
(somedude2)
11
But..that could change with any update…
Policy changes are often staged in tiny bits, so people don’t realize where they are going..just saying..
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Exactly…It’s like they’ve decided that the end goal of having a computer is to “get on the Internet”. Sure, it’s what most people do, but there are other uses for computers that have nothing to do with the Internet.
It frustrates me the Microsoft is making things hard for those of us who like to do a quick test to be sure a newly unboxed computer is good before reimaging them. I do this because I have had defective computers straight out of the box, and I don’t want to make any changes to the computer (like reimaging) before validating that what was shipped to me works. I use the oobe/bypassnro so I can QUICKLY get to the desktop…sorry Microsoft, I’m not willing to wait 30 minutes for the machine to become fully updated just to spent 2-3 minutes validating it’s good and then wiping the OS.
Even if I wasn’t reimagining, I would still do the bypass because it’s FASTER for ME to join the computer to the domain FIRST and THEN let it download updates from my WSUS server.
I can somewhat understand this move for W11 Home computers, but it REALLY irks me that they treat W11 Pro like a consumer OS because, well, they want to sell us W11 Enterprise.
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Yes, of course I agree. And it likely will. The anti-piracy angle just doesn’t make as much sense to me in this case.
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And maybe that’s one of the end goals. But at what point do they arbitrarily decide to enforce Microsoft accounts on that version as well?
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The only way I’ve been able to bypass without a regedit is to turn off wifi and unplug the network cable, reboot.
I only run Pro licenses at home, so I’m hoping selecting the domain add will continue to work.
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Rod-IT
(Rod-IT)
16
That’s how I do it. Choose domain, then follow the prompts.
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Will the no@thankyou.com still work? this was another way for home users to get out of the required setup too.
As far as the Control Panel changes, Yea I’m with everyone not liking the change, but for now I can still R-Click and select Open in new Window and see the old layout as before.
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According to a comment on Ars Technica running start ms-cxh:localonly in CMD will drop you straight to a desktop
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For Home edition, I have an ID just for enabling Device Encryption, backup the recovery key to an additional safe place, and then convert to a local account. I hope they don’t remove the convert to local account option.
For Pro, I use the domain join option, but I hope they don’t make joining a domain mandatory to select this option.
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“Bluetooth & devices” > “Devices” > “More devices and printer settings” to get to the old Control Panel for managing printers for now.
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