yikes, yeah the “make it look offline or it brickwalled” trick is wild. pro tip: hit Shift+F10 → cmd → OOBE\BYPASSNRO ... then quick yank the ethernet or refuse all wi-fi networks before it re-pings redmond. boom, local win11 acct, no microsoft babysitting.
still switched that box to arch this evening—**Privacy by Principle** and no forced zwinky captchas melting my braincells.