


That said, you can always add an account later. Don't just do this because you don't like the idea of a Microsoft account. You should really know what you're doing here. Step 3Īt this point, it looks like you'll need to Create a Microsoft account, but you can also click "Sign in without a Microsoft account." You can click there to create a new online Microsoft account, sure, but this is also how you create a local account. You can also click "Create a new account" at the bottom. Setup will ask you to Sign into your Microsoft account. When you get to settings, it doesn't matter if you click Use Express Settings or Customize. It wasn't immediately obvious to me how to create a local login, so I wrote it up here to help you, Oh Internet Person. Now, I realize that not using a Live ID would limit the things I could do and cause a lot more account popups when I visited apps like Music, Store, Video, and others, but still, I want the choice.

I didn't feel like linking this temporary machine to my existing Microsoft ID and just wanted a regular local login. I was setting up Windows 8.1 on a machine and didn't want to use a Microsoft ID (Live ID) to sign into it.
