Rufus beta allows installation of Windows without a user account

A new beta of flash tool Rufus makes it possible to install Windows 11 without users needing a Microsoft account. It is also possible to bypass other system requirements, such as the much-discussed TPM requirements.

The new options are in the beta of Rufus 3.19. Rufus is a popular tool for creating bootable USB sticks, usually used to install operating systems. The new beta includes an option to create a bootable drive with Windows 11 22H2 Home or Pro without requiring users to have a Microsoft account during installation. This is currently mandatory, although there are ways to get around it. With the new Rufus version, that will be easier. The makers write that it is necessary to temporarily disable the internet on the device when creating a local account. With the beta it is also possible to set all requests for data collection to ‘do not allow’ or ‘deny’ by default.

The Rufus beta also allows bypassing the TPM 2.0 requirement. Since the introduction of the new operating system, this has been a much-discussed system requirement. Users would initially require a Trusted Platform Module 2.0, although reports were contradictory. Later, Microsoft made it possible to circumvent that requirement via a registry key adjustment. Rufus now makes that possible as an option.

Other changes in Rufus include the ability to install Linux distros without a GRUB 2.0 directory, organize disk listings, and the new tool has a few minor bug fixes where Windows wouldn’t mount certain Linux partitions.