I just installed Win11 (previously on Win10). I created the bootable USB with Rufus and checked to skip the Microsoft account login requirement (Rufus created a local account for me). Now I discovered I can’t download anything from this store because of this error. Google / Youtube haven’t been very helpful.
You will likely have to login to the store to download things from it.
Will that intertwine my entire PC with the Microsoft account or the login in will be just for the store? I don’t want to be tied to the Microsoft account. I haven’t encountered this error using a local account before.
It will intertwine your entire PC with the Microsoft account.
You should be able to sign in to just the store app by clicking a tiny little box on the subsequent window that pops up during the sign-in process. That’s how I sign in to the store for app downloads without having to use those same credentials to sign in to the PC.
That box is intentionally made small and easy to miss because they obviously want you to use a MS account across the whole machine, but it’s there if you move slowly and look for it.
That said, you shouldn’t have to sign in to download any app updates from the store. You can also download new apps without signing in-- the license will just be tied to the machine instead of your personal account if you do that.
This unhelpful error is just MS being MS. Best option is usually just to leave it be and check back later, as it oftentimes really is a problem on their end.