I am planning to get a Windows laptop very soon, and am not interested in backing up or storing my local files on the cloud. As I understand, this solution for setting up Windows with a local account no longer works for most people, even for Windows 11 Professional.
Preparing for the harder case, I was then going to create a new local account (with administrator privileges) just after setting up Windows with a Microsoft account, and remove the Microsoft account as explained here, but these comments suggest this is not a good solution for the Windows product key (however, the quote in the longer comment seems to imply that it would cause problems just in cases where initially setting up Windows with a local account would also cause problems, namely, after hardware upgrades, which would be infrequent enough that the Microsoft account could be temporarily re-associated just for post-upgrade re-activation of the product key).
If this is still not a good idea, and I create a new local administrator account but leave the Microsoft account as is, will the Microsoft account function and appear on my machine just as a separate Windows account which will leave my local administrator account completely alone (and then I could just never log into that Windows account created during initial setup, except perhaps after hardware upgrades)? Alternatively, I've been told I can switch the Microsoft account to a local account all within the same Windows account without creating a second one, so I'm not sure if this would be a better or worse plan.
Finally, I'm not quite sure what the relation is between the Microsoft/local account distinction and OneDrive. I guess even on a local account I will still need to disable (and optionally uninstall) OneDrive and reconfigure some of the File Explorer links toward my own local folders. Is it best to do this on both the unused initial account and the second, local administrator account (if I create it as a separate account), and should I do this before or after I convert the Microsoft account to a local account (if I go down that road)?
Anything else I should know regarding configuring to stay off the cloud is also appreciated.
