Even though the article says that Microsoft removed the “bypassnro” workaround earlier this year, I just used it earlier this evening to set up a new Win11 PC for a neighbour successfully (she didn't have a Microsoft account on her previous Win10 laptop, and wanted it the same way).
At the part of the initial setup where it asks to connect to a network, press Shift + F10 to open the Command Prompt. Then, type oobe\bypassnro and press Enter. The system will reboot and start the initial setup again in a non-network mode that allows you to create a local user account.
The new HP PCs I've deployed recently did not have current Windows 11 builds installed. I tend to think OEMs are being slow to update their master images.
This only affects the Dev Channel for now, Insider Preview Build 26220.6772. It needs this new ISO of course.
I did the "start ms-cxh:localonly" trick yesterday on a fresh install of Windows 11 25H2 and it worked fine, so...?
I have been holding off upgrading to windows 11, but it sounds like I should do it before I lose the ability to upgrade without an account.