Just curious about the process for creating and authenticating a Microsoft account in relation to activating a system.
It's basically a requirement to provide your legal name and phone number?
The license will probably be an OEM license for Windows 10 with a sticker (but, won't work as a VM, sadly, so want to get the details correct.)
You don't have to use a Microsoft account at all. Just go through the setup without a network connection. Windows 10 will happily let you create a local account.
If it can see the internet during the install it will very obnoxiously try to convince you to use a Microsoft account (a Live ID). You can still use a local account but it is extremely well hidden in that case (and were it hides seems to change with every new release of Windows 10).
So the easiest way is just to install without an active internet connection and you won't have a Microsoft account.
The system WILL activate the first time it sees the Microsoft servers on the internet. It just won't be tied to a Microsoft account.
If you ever want to re-use that same license it will probably activate again all by itself if the hardware is almost the same. If it doesn't you can contact Microsoft support to have the license (if it is a retail license) reset so you can do a new activation.
If you do want/need the Microsoft account you just need to supply a valid email address and invent a password. Can be a non-Microsoft email as well. (E.g. I use a Gmail account as LiveID for several Windows 10 installs and for Office 365.)
The LiveID gets its own password and I strongly recommend NOT to use the same password as the normal password for that email account.
In this case the activation still may not happen automatically if you re-use the license at a later point, but again: Microsoft support can reset that.
There is no need to provide additional personal details if you don't want to. But you will have to setup some security questions (like "what was the name of your first pet") and better write down the answers to those somewhere, because you need those if you ever forget the password.
