I installed Windows 10 in a virtual machine...man, this is straight up dystopian.
The tips, ads, and recommendations you see will be more generic and may be less relevant to you.
And this is treated as a bad thing?!
The number of ads you see won't change, but they may be less relevant to you.
Send only info about your device, its settings and capabilities, and whether it is performing properly.
In other words, even after turning off all the settings, your data still gets collected.
The rest of the installation process wasn't fun either. It was worded in this weird, condescending tone, like "Let's get everything set up for you", and "Let Cortana help you get things done!".
With win10 you should be able to click the small text to get a local account but yeah I think with newer win11 installers you have to be off the internet for a local account. And then when you do log in with your MS account to save your license (important when using a Win7 OEM key to license win10) it would convert your profile to online, and then you had to "do steps" to put it back to local. Annoying af
When installing Windows 11, say you want to log in with your Microsoft account, then when it asks for email address and password enter a@a.com and any random password. It will say the account has been deactivated and let you create a local account. No need to be offline.
You can enter any random email and password, there's no need to type any specific one. Or you could add the registry key that prevents the requirement.