After a couple of false starts I got a good USB stick and got the
locked out machine reloaded from scratch.
I used the working 11 machine and the creation tool
It says you can use an 8G stick but that failed and files were
missing/corrupted. The ISO was burned to that stick with RUFUS and
that didn't work either. I tried a 32g stick and it worked.
One strange thing is on the original working machine, there was no pin
required and still doesn.t need one. The reloaded one still wants a
PIN.
On the no PIN machine I am a local user. On the reloaded machine I am
a password protected user.
How do I create a local user no password/PIN?
I seemed to have that option on the other machine and I deleted the
original user.
When I logged into MS It did see the first machine and attempt to sync
but I guess I did all the customization after MS saw the machine last
because none of my custom stuff came over.
I am longing for the simplicity of 7 the more I use this. Both are on
11 home now. I have everyone on the network now and things seem to be
going OK.
The locked out machine was running 10 as best I can tell. It wouldn't
let me just do an upgrade tho because I couldn't get into the 10 OS to
start setup. On an upgrade, it won't run from the boot drive, I am
not sure if there is anything I really need in the "Old" directory it
created. I may dump it.

Again, thanks for all of your help. This might be the best NG I am
seeing these days.

<gfretwell@aol.com> wrote:

> One strange thing is on the original working machine, there was no pin
> required and still doesn.t need one. The reloaded one still wants a
> PIN.

Users sometimes configure Windows to /not/ require a login. On Win10:

Run: netplwiz.exe
Users tab
Disable "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer"

My recollection is you don't need to logout and back in, but you might.

On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 20:38:54 -0500, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

><gfretwell@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> One strange thing is on the original working machine, there was no pin
>> required and still doesn.t need one. The reloaded one still wants a
>> PIN.
>
>Users sometimes configure Windows to /not/ require a login. On Win10:
>
>Run: netplwiz.exe
>Users tab
>Disable "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer"
>
>My recollection is you don't need to logout and back in, but you might.

I got it figured out. If you sign up a local user you can skip the PIN
but if you are listed as a MS Account user, you need the pin.
On the one I plan on traveling with I have a local user as a standard
user and the PIN user as administrator. That seemed like a suitable
compromise. On the other machine that was unlocked when I got it I
didn't notice if "Faun" was an account user or a local user but I
deleted her and all her crap. That machine doesn't have an MSA user
now. It still seems to be registered at MS tho and I synced from it.
They are nosing around in my machine.
Some day I will get serious about finding the W/7 stick I made for my
mini and see if it has the same USB 3.0 driver on it. They were both
HP machines about the same age. Right now I have everything going and
I am "PC'ed" out.
The last few days was a crash course on W/11 for me tho. I still like
7 better ;)