Want me to trust Windows 11 again? Bring back local accounts

After years of pissing me and other Windows 11 users off, Microsoft says it’s ready to turn a new leaf, fixing mistakes, making improvements, and adding some long-requested features. I’d like to believe that Windows 11 is headed in the right direction. But given how anti-user Windows has become, I’m bitter and cynical. There’s one way Microsoft can prove that it’s serious…but I don’t think they’ll actually do it.

I won’t bury the lead here: It’s local accounts. If Microsoft wants to make users feel like Windows 11 is tangibly improving, the easiest way to do that is to add back a feature that they know we want. And they know we want local accounts, created at Windows setup with no connection to an online Microsoft login. Because they’ve spent years intentionally closing every loophole and patching every workaround that let users continue to do it in Windows 11.

The upcoming apology tour already includes one of the features I’ve been begging for: a taskbar at the top of the monitor. I keep my monitors high with VESA mounts for ergonomic reasons — you should be looking straight at your screen, not down, your back will thank me! — and it just feels better to put the taskbar on top for me. And since the launch of Windows 11, I’ve needed a separate, paid tool, StartAllBack, to accomplish that. For this very specific, tangible, visible feature, Windows 11 feels like a step backward for me.

So clearly Microsoft is willing to give us some big features we’ve been craving. And it’s removing at least some of what nobody asked for. “As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets, and Notepad,” says Microsoft’s President of Windows & Devices.

Given how relentlessly Microsoft has pushed, pleaded, and plotted to get more people using (and paying for) Copilot, I can only imagine those words coming through a rictus grin.

In that context, along with reducing annoyances and enhancing performance, you might have hope that Microsoft is being genuine here. And there’s at least some indication that a local login, with no need to be constantly tracked and marketed to via online hooks, is on the table. The same day that big apology post and commitment, another Microsoft executive acknowledged complaints about the login requirement on the corpse of Twitter. “Ya I hate that,” said Scott Hanselman. “Working on it.”

Hanselman is the VP of Developer Community. So he knows that developers and power users want this. I asked him via email if he would elaborate on the comment. Over a week later, I haven’t heard back.

Apple’s MacOS, often considered “locked down” and inflexible compared to Windows, lets you log in without a connected account. So does ChromeOS, shockingly. And if Google of all companies can let you use a local account on a laptop in 2026, Microsoft should absolutely give you that option.

But with apologies for the pessimism, I don’t think Microsoft is bringing back local logins. And not just because one VP isn’t elaborating on a quick social media comment. No, there’s simply too much money on the table, too much valuable data, for Microsoft to give users what they really want.

You know that Microsoft wants to sell you stuff. Mostly stuff you don’t want, or could get more effectively elsewhere — how many of you are using free Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office, or going to ChatGPT instead of Copilot? But this is about more than just trying to get you to pay for Microsoft products.

Windows itself is monetized via user data, just like almost everything you do on the web, and more and more things that you do in real life. Your web traffic and behavior, what apps you use, what devices you connect to, your location, even the way you type or touch your screen. All of it is data that Microsoft collects and, in some cases, sells. All of it is incredibly valuable to Microsoft and its partners/customers.

This data is the beating heart of the modern Microsoft, or at least the part of it pointed at regular users. Microsoft is no longer a company that sells operating systems to PC owners, it entices users onto its platform to monetize them. Regular home users are monetized via advertising data, corporate users are monetized via upsells for expensive services.

It’s possible to turn off some of this data collection…not that Microsoft can’t get at it from other directions. Here it’s worth noting that even though it’s known for software devices like Xbox and Surface, Microsoft is one of the largest advertising companies on the planet.

But removing the instant, always-on connection to a Microsoft account would effectively hog-tie the system that makes Windows valuable to Microsoft. They just won’t do it.

There’s an argument to be made here that, given how Microsoft uses Windows as a nexus of user data collection and an advertising platform, it should be free. It should, and Microsoft already treats it like it’s free most of the time, so I don’t know why we’re out here pretending a Windows 11 license really costs $139. But I digress.

So yes, call me cynical, and I am. I’m not the only one on the PCWorld to be skeptical of this reset, however conciliatory the tone. But if anyone at Microsoft is listening — Scott? — then please keep it in mind: This is how you win users back. This is how you show, rather than merely tell, that you’re committed to making Windows 11 an operating system for users once again.