Visual Studio Web performance or Load testing, requests always go through a proxy

In, Visual Studio 2013, Web Performance Testing project, Select your WebTest
In root element, select properties and check the proxy value. This (proxy value) is always set to "default"

Sometimes its preferable for tests to not go through a proxy as a proxy has its own bottleneck. Visual Studio will not allowing you to change this value to blank (to not use a proxy). If you remove the proxy value, VS will put default back again automatically.

This is because "default" means use the system proxy while running tests. If you do not want your test runs to use a proxy, disable the proxy in the system.
To do this, go to Internet Explorer, Select Tools, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings, and un-check all proxy enable check boxes

Windows domain account getting locked

Domain account was getting locked out at random times.

Turns out Windows 8.1 mail was configured and I missed to update the password there and it kept retrying with the old password and locking it.