@gsprs @GossiTheDog last time I set up a Win11 machine a year and a half ago, it was obligatory to use an account (they had blocked all the workarounds at the time) - and BitLocker was automatically activated. Not sure it's even easy to deactivate that and use VeraCrypt instead, now.

On my previous Win11 machine, I was able to bypass using an account and BitLocker was not provided. In that case I found I could put a firmware lock on the drive - good enough for my purposes.