It appears that with Windows 8.1 RTM Microsoft wants you to concatenate all your account credentials under Windows into a Microsoft account, and that there's no way to access any of the Store or Microsoft Modern account driven software without doing so... Does anyone know if it's possible to access the Store, and other Windows 8.1 account authorized features in the same manner as Windows 8 where you could have a local account and just login to these other services separately?
Greetings !, what an interesting outcome..................sorry, I have not touched 8.1. Had enough with 8 and back to 7. Well, I can only speculate, without much knowledge, perhaps is part of the big picture................the cloud...........slowly and steady we are all being push to centralization..............so at home you will not have to have an OS or hard drive. Your WAN connection, in the future, say, fibre, will be like the old telephone system hooked to wires. You pick the handset, you dial and you pay !
Well poking around I found that it is possible to use the 'Windows 8 Method' of individually (and privately) logging into various services from a local account; Microsoft just doesn't make it very obvious, especially if your color scheme isn't forgiving in this regard. What I find most onerous about the concatenated and integrated credential thing, is that it's an obvious deliberate move against privacy -- while I have nothing to hide this is conspicuously Microsoft moving in Google's direction in knowing about me to target advertising, with the important distinction that Microsoft's OS is NOT free... That said Microsoft has still provided what appears to be an opportunity for you to opt out even if they aren't calling it that and even though it probably makes no difference insofar as what Microsoft is able to track, monitor, and sell...
Go to Search > Edit group policy > Administrative templates > Windows components > Store > Disable #1, #3, #4 items.
Is there a way yet to download appx bundles from the cloud for offline installation via DISM, for machines that never go online ?
Spoiler Yes there are, using any program that capture or monitor http packets (like HTTPNetworkSniffer from NirSoft) but you have to be quick, because the captured link will not last and will expire leaving you with access denied so you capture the link, cancel store install, download the link with any download manager However, the appxbundle will lack the required license to Provision (install) it properly. and if you use "/SkipLicense" parameter, the installed package will not start and will instruct you to reinstall from Store.