Ditch Your Microsoft Account on Win 10
YOU’LL NEED THIS WINDOWS 10 And the desire to eschew a Microsoft account in favor of a local account.
WHEN YOU FIRST CREATE AN ACCOUNT ON WINDOWS 10, Microsoft would prefer you to use an online Microsoft account that you can use to access all its other services, such as Mixer, Outlook, Skype, and more. But there may be times when you don’t want to use this account and would prefer to keep everything on your computer. In times like that, you need to use a local account instead.
This has a couple of benefits. For one thing, it means you can still get going even if you don’t already have a Microsoft account—particularly useful if you’re setting the account up for someone else and don’t know their Microsoft account details. As well as that, there’s also the privacy side, because a local account won’t sync anything to Microsoft’s servers, instead keeping everything on your local machine. And because your Microsoft account uses the same password as your email, if you let someone log in to your PC, they would then have access to your full Microsoft account—not good.
So, there are plenty of reasons to opt for a local account instead of a Microsoft one. Now let’s get started and set one up.
1 CREATE A NEW LOCAL USER ACCOUNT
If all you need to do is create a new, separate local account (whether it’s for yourself or for someone else), and you’ve already set up Windows 10, the process is easy and straightforward. You don’t need to know their details or have them present to do it, either.
>> First, click the Start menu icon, then click the Settings cog. Once the Settings app opens, click “Accounts,” then click “Family and other people” in the left-hand column. Under the “Other people” header, there is an option to “Add someone else to this PC” [ Image A]. Click this and a new window opens up, asking you to enter the email or phone number of the person who will use the account. Instead of doing this, click “I don’t have this person’s sign-in information.”
>> This takes you to a page where you can enter the user’s email address, password, location, and date of birth. Ignore all of this, and instead click “Add a user without a Microsoft account.” On the next page, enter a username and password for the account, and then re-enter the password for security purposes. You can also add three security questions and answers. Once you’re finished, click “Next,” and the local account is created.
2 CHANGE TO A LOCAL ACCOUNT
If you want to change an existing account from a Microsoft account to a local user account, fear not—it’s just as straightforward as it is when you create a new account from scratch. You don’t need to worry about being signed in to the account that needs to be changed—if your main account is a Microsoft account, you can change it to a local account without needing to log out or create another account first.
>> To get started, open up the Settings app from the “Start” menu. From here, click “Accounts,” then click “Your info” in the left-hand column. Underneath the text reading “Manage my Microsoft account” you should see “Sign in with a local account instead.” Click this.
>> A new window opens, so enter your current login password, then click “Next.” You are then able to enter a new account name, a password (which you also need to re-enter), plus a password hint [ Image B]. Once you’ve done that, click “Sign out and finish,” then sign back in again once you have the opportunity. Your account is now configured as a local user account rather than a Microsoft account.
3 LOG IN WITH A LOCAL ACCOUNT ON SETUP
Things are different—and a bit trickier—if you’re in the process of installing Windows 10 and haven’t yet created any user accounts (Microsoft or local). That’s because Microsoft tries extremely hard to push you away from setting up a local user account and toward using a Microsoft account instead. It is possible to resist its unrelenting prodding and create a local user account, but it involves a little work.
>> First off, turn off your Internet connection before creating either a Microsoft or local user account. Then, during the setup process, when you’re prompted to connect to the Internet over Wi-Fi or Ethernet, click “I don’t have Internet” in the bottom-left corner. This takes you to a splash page where Microsoft extols the virtues of connecting Windows 10 to the Internet; ignore this, and instead click “Continue with limited setup.”
>> Alternatively, when you reach the “Sign in with Microsoft” page, click “Domain join instead” in the bottom-left corner. Despite the confusingly obscure name, this actually takes you to a page where you can set up a local user account. It seems Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, decided to make this as unclear as possible in order to unsubtly guide you toward creating a Microsoft account.
>> Note that setting up a local user account this way requires the 1903 Windows 10 update from Microsoft. Previous versions made it much harder to create a local user account when setting up Windows 10, but if you want to install the operating system today, the latest version should work with the process above.
4 REMOVE A MICROSOFT ACCOUNT
Fortunately, removing a Microsoft account from your PC is quick and simple, and involves no trickery and clever tactics, unlike the previous step. As before, open the Settings app from the “Start” menu, then click “Accounts.” In the left-hand column, click “Email & app accounts.”
>> On this page, there’s a section titled “Accounts used by other apps,” which lists all of your currently active Microsoft accounts that are connected to your PC. Click the account you want to delete from your PC, then click “Remove.” If that account has previously signed in, you will be asked if you want to delete the account and all of its data—if you click “Delete account and data” [ Image C], that account’s downloads, documents, desktop files, photos, music, and more will be removed from your PC. If it hasn’t signed in, you’ll see a different warning box; click “Yes.” Note that this doesn’t delete the Microsoft account itself (you’ll still be able to use it to sign in on Microsoft’s websites, for example), it just removes it from your computer.
>> Alternatively, you can remove a Microsoft account through the Control Panel app. In the Windows 10 search box, type “Control Panel” and click the top result. Click “User Accounts,” then “Remove user accounts.” This now lists all of the accounts set up on your PC. Click the account that you want to remove, then click “Delete the account.” You get a warning that all of that account’s files will be removed; click “Delete Files,” then “Delete Account.”
>> That’s all there is to it. Once the Microsoft account has been removed from your PC, you’ll be able to use a local user account to sign in instead.