Many folks have repeatedly asked for a Windows 11 Tweak Guide. I’m not promising that will happen but toward that end I’ve been experimenting with installing and/or upgrading Windows 11 on my main PC.
Since it’s release I’ve done an upgrade with almost every version on Win11.
This go round with version 25H2 I did:
– Update via Windows update
– Update online via setup.exe from an extracted ISO.
– Update offline via setup.exe from an extracted ISO.
– Clean install booting from a USB drive via ISO.
My goal in all this was to use a local account. I do not want a Microsoft account on my PC.
Update via Windows update
Went flawlessly but I couldn’t find a way to bypass using a Microsoft account.
Update online via setup.exe from an extracted ISO.
Setup hung at getting updates. A quick Google search revealed the solution: https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+11+setup+update+stuck+at+46
Update offline via setup.exe from an extracted ISO.
With the above attempt repeatedly failing I unplugged the ethernet cable and the skipped the option to install updates.
This worked perfectly and my existing local account was maintained.
This is the option I was to end up keeping.
Clean install booting from a USB drive via ISO.
I made a Win11 install USB drive using Rufus. Rufus has the option of creating an install that allows using a local account. SEE BELOW
Next I wiped the OS drive via a Win10 boot disk (diskpart).
From there the install went flawlessly.
Now I was faced with the task of reinstalling everything. Since the upgrade above had worked flawlessly I quickly noped out of that.
So here I continue on, experimenting with tweaks…
The Rufus Win11 Install Thumb Drive
Download Win11
Download Rufus (portable)
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