Windows 11 new laptop sign in with work account at install

Clownbaby247 21

I've just recently started as an IT help desk for my company and have not been using windows for some time but I'm not unfamiliar with it.

I've been tasked with setting up a brand new laptop for a new employee which I thought was going to be a a very quick and easy task.

I want to use the email I set up in our azure ad the same day we got the laptop but when trying to use the email to sign up it continually says it isn't a Microsoft account.

There should be an option during the initial set up to name the device and then to choose for work or school but I've reset windows about 4 times now and after connecting to the wifi it skips to adding a Microsoft account.

I cannot find helpful information as to why I'm missing options in the initial set up and how I can use the account I just created as a sign in user for the laptop

3 answers

Ray Charbonneau 25 Reputation points

2023-05-16T13:05:08.65+00:00

The answer is: you can't do what you want to do easily because Microsoft want to force you to use a MS account to log in and for some stupid reason they won't let you use a work account - you have to use a personal account.

The only alternative is to use a local account. You can get that option by starting over (again :-) with the computer disconnected from your network. It's still not obvious, but it's possible.
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5 people found this answer helpful.
Charles Yeomans 5 Reputation points

2023-05-31T05:08:18.7166667+00:00

totally dumb when there is a business account. I am trying to set up the same as @Ray Charbonneau
How idiotic and what a waste of time.

Charles Yeomans 5 Reputation points

2023-05-31T05:13:41.7733333+00:00

Ray
How do you start again, it doesn't seem to let you ?
This is so stupid. They should just ask for a Local User Id to set up.
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Reza-Ameri 16,971 Reputation points

2022-02-11T17:29:50.03+00:00

Take a look at:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/devices/azuread-joined-devices-frx
This is about the Windows 10 but it should work in Windows 11 too.
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Clownbaby247 21 Reputation points

2022-02-11T22:39:09.797+00:00

I cannot join the new device to the azure AD during inital set up because "this device belongs to an organization" has not been an option

Reza-Ameri 16,971 Reputation points

2022-02-12T15:31:55.797+00:00

What edition of Windows 11 are you using?

Alexandru Pirvu 0 Reputation points

2023-10-03T09:20:21.2366667+00:00

I have the same problem. The weird part is that until now (since this original post date) I managed to setup Windows 11 on multiple laptops and select the Work or school account type then login with my business account (which is a microsoft account by the way - just custom domain).

Today I am encountering this issue. Something that I don't remember being given an option is to pick the Windows version during installation (Pro). So, I don't know what happened, perhaps some update that just assumes that skips over these options altogether.

Update

I've access it in the end using my personal account and hoping I can register it afterwards with the business. I attempted to add the business account, but the account was not being found. I believe this is because the installation shows as Windows Home even though nowhere during the installation wizard was I asked to choose the version or account type.

The thing is that the same USB bootable stick I used in the past on multiple laptops and never have I encountered this issue. Every time it was asking me to choose the version then to enter the serial number or enter it later. Now nothing of that sort happened. Somehow it determined I wanted to install the Home version by default. I even recreated it with the latest Microsoft tools, but nothing changed. I even looked to check if there is an explicit Windows Pro installation tool but couldn't find anything like this. The only thing that comes to mind is that either this change is due to some update that the installation pulls (though the windows version selection was usually done before requiring it to connect to WiFi/internet) or something baked in the installation that conditions the version based on the hardware.

In the end, I just created a local account then removed my personal one from the machine. I now hope that once I will hand this to someone to use it, I register the Windows Pro key / upgrade version, I will be able to assign a business account. However, the entire process is painful.
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Reza-Ameri 16,971 Reputation points

2022-02-12T15:35:48.933+00:00

In this case we advise you to consider using Autopilot , take a look at:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/autopilot/windows-autopilot
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Windows 11 new laptop sign in with work account at install

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