Convert online Microsoft Azure account to local account?

DanielDC88 said:

I set my desktop user account up accidentally using my Microsoft Azure AD account. I want to change it to a local account without losing my settings. Can this be done?

Unfortunately, you cannot switch an Azure AD account to a local or Microsoft account. You need to create a new user account first, make it an admin account, then disconnect from your organizational account, restart and sign in to new local account.

All software remains installed and intact but all user specific customizations and settings are lost, new local user starting from scratch with default settings.

The whole process step by step:

1.) Copy your personal data (documents, images etc.) from current Azure AD user profile folder to respective folders in C:\Users\Public

2.) In Settings > Accounts > Other people, add a new local user (see Option One in this tutorial) and change it's account type to Administrator (tutorial)

3.) Check that everything is correct, that you will see your Azure AD account under Work or school users (yellow highlight), and your new local admin account under Other people (blue highlight):



4.) Select Access work or school on left pane, select the connected Azure AD domain, click Disconnect:



5.) Click Yes:



6.) Click Disconnect:



7.) Enter the username and password for your new local admin account, click OK:



8.) Click Restart now:



9.) When back on desktop with your new local admin account, move personal data from Public folder and its subfolders you backed up in step 1 above to respective subfolders on new user profile folder. If the old Azure AD user profile folder is still present in Users folder, it can be deleted now.

That's it.

Kari

I very strongly advice against doing that! I have done this multiple times on different machines, both directions (AAD > Local > AAD) and speak from experience, not too extensive experience but anyway.

It's better to accept the fact that you need to customize your new local user profile from scratch. However, it's your PC, you are the one who decides how to proceed. If you want to try something, that's your decision.

Kari

DanielDC88 said:

That's unfortunate. All of this could have been avoided had I created a local account in the first place. Surely there are some settings that could be easily moved over to save myself some time?

The only ones I can think of are the desktop theme and Start layout. If you have a custom theme, save it to Users\Public (tutorial) and apply when on desktop with new local user.

For Start layout, see this Microsoft TechNet article: Windows 10 Start Layout Customization The Deployment Guys

Kari

@DanielDC88, thanks for the idea for two tutorials:

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In case the embedded tweets above are not shown, here are the direct links to tutorials:

• Join Windows 10 PC to Azure AD Windows 10 Tutorials
• Disconnect a Windows 10 PC from Azure AD Windows 10 Tutorials

Kari

Nice work, Kari. Glad you had some time to mess around and learn some stuff while I was incommunicado.
--Ed--