I was working on my laptop in the kitchen instead of my office where I usually work. I noticed that the login to Windows was really slow. I was further from the router than normal, so my Internet connection was probably a little slower. Why should this affect a simple login?
I remembered that I set up Windows 10 with a Microsoft account. There were many recommendations to do this and it didn’t seem to be that easy to use an alternative.
I reviewed the “advantages” of using a Microsoft account, and didn’t really see any that were relevant to the way I use my PC, or to the way I suspect most other people use Windows. I don’t use many Microsoft apps and I didn’t see any value to synchronize my laptop with my Android phone or iPad (if Microsoft software even works very well with “foreign” machines).
I found that it is not that difficult to switch from a Microsoft account to a Local Account. Just go into Settings and search for Accounts/My info.
Once this was done, sure enough my Windows login was a lot faster. To see a noticeable speedup like this, a fair amount of data must have been transmitted (sent and/or received) between my computer and Microsoft servers.
So what was my PC sending to Microsoft?
I have no idea. I spent some time researching this question and I could not find any detailed explanations from Microsoft or third party tech experts.
Whatever data is being copied, I would rather none of it get stored on Microsoft servers. If you have similar concerns, switch your Windows user to a Local Account.
