Install Windows 11 Without a Microsoft Account

Thank you ‘Tom’ for the article on How To: “Maintain only a local account on your Windows 11 PC“.

By default, you must log in with a Microsoft account in order to install Windows 11 and go through the box (OOBE) setup process that triggers either as part of installation or the first time you turn on a new Windows PC. It seems like Microsoft really wants you to log in to Windows 11 using its account system, both so it can track you, …and so you can get benefits such as synchronizing your wallpaper and preferences across different computers.

However, there are many reasons why you would want to install Windows 11 using a local account only. Maybe you want to install Windows 11 with a local (non-Microsoft) account because you are installing the OS on a child’s PC or on a PC that you plan to sell, give to a friend or donate to a charity (without giving other people access to personal data). Or perhaps you just like your privacy and don’t want to create an account with Microsoft in the first place.

Whatever your reason for doing so, it’s easy to install or set up Windows 11 without using a Microsoft account. Below, we’ll show you the method: which involves issuing some commands during the install / OOBE process. We’ve tested the method on the latest major Windows 11 version, 24H2, and they work.

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Cannot find wrapper assembly for type library “ADODB”

Happy new year and Happy coding!
Using Visual Studio 2022 on Windows 11 with the latest updates to 24H2, started giving the following errors when trying to compile an older project:

The "ResolveComReference" task returned false but did not log an error.
Cannot find wrapper assembly for type library "ADODB". Verify that (1) the COM component is registered correctly and (2) your target platform is the same as the bitness of the COM component. For example, if the COM component is 32-bit, your target platform must not be 64-bit.

So, you Google a bit and find this, but don’t do that!
In my case, the following article helped, or just a comment from it “Mine was resolved by removing the reference to “Microsoft HTML Object Library” and adding it again in the project.“.

  • In solution Explorer, open ‘My Project’
  • Go to the tab ‘References’
  • Find your mentioned library on the top, in my case, ‘Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.8 Library’ with some ‘ADODB.dll’ in a system32 folder.
  • Click the ‘Add’ button, tab COM > Type Libraries, and find your library, it should be checked.
  • UNCHECK it, and OK the popup
  • Repeat: Click the ‘Add’ button, tab COM > Type Libraries, and find your library, now unchecked.
  • CHECK it, and OK the popup
  • Save everything and try to compile again.

That should work.
If not, so sorry, but it did for me…

Have a nice day!