Has a Microsoft account become mandatory?

margrave55 said:

I bought a laptop with Win 10 Pro in 2016. It's now running 2004.
I bought a desktop with Win 10 Home in 2017. It's now running 1809.

Neither of them has a Microsoft account.
I don't have one. I don't want one. Not ever. Not ever. Not ever.
Both boxes simply have my name as one account and my wife's name as the other.

In the future, if I buy a new Win 10 box (or if I update the existing boxes to newer releases of Win 10), will I be required to create a Microsoft account?

I get the impression that MS is forcing this to be so.

The last full install I did prompted for an account but I put in a phone number that I was pretty sure did not exist in Microsoft, it failed and showed a text line at bottom left about using a local account instead. Just had to read the screens.

margrave55 said:

I get the impression that MS is forcing this to be so.

Everything is moving into the cloud, so eventually it will be. Currently it is in the transition period. When you clean install 20H2 with internet, you can not even choose a local account. For the record, you can create MS account using any email and it is much safer, you can use 100+ password and login with a PIN.

I forgot to mention that full install I did was going from Version 1803 and it wouldn't accept 2004 so did 1909 then got 2004.

I think there will be folks that will use the information gleaned from forums in their consideration to change to a 'flavor' of Linux.

I've done several recent installs using 2009 and was able to do both using a local account. MS doesn't necessarily make it obvious how to do it but, if you read the prompts on the screen carefully, you can get through the install process using a local account.

I have read of people who say that they disconnected the computer from the network so it no longer had an internet connection, then proceeded to install by using the "Create MS account now" path which errors out. At that point you can then proceed to install using a local account. I haven't needed to do that.

I personally doubt that it will ever be made impossible to install using a local account.

strollin said:

I personally doubt that it will ever be made impossible to install using a local account.

You can not use Android without Google, so it will be similar. Install yes (somewhat), but not really usable.

A Microsoft account is not required to use or install Windows 10.

Clean Install Windows 10

A Microsoft account is only required when you want to use Microsoft services that require a Microsoft account. For example: OneDrive, Cortana, Skype, etc...