News How to Factory Reset a Windows 10 or 11 PC

[Admin]

Whether you're having technical issues or errors, are preparing to sell your PC, or things just aren't running right, it may be time to reset Windows 10 or 11.

How to Factory Reset a Windows 10 or 11 PC : Read more

 

[Johnpombrio]

A lot of laptop manufacturers create a "recovery" partition in the Windows install. If you do not wipe all the drive's partitions, the files are kept and loaded back onto any "fresh" install of Windows. So the bloatware can come back even if you do a "factory" install. This is also a catch-22 scenario as if there are special drivers needed, they would also be inside that partition. Sooo, clone the hard drive before wiping it. Visit the manufacturer's site for drivers and store them on the cloned drive or make sure that there is a driver CD available. Go into the install from a USB drive and erase all of the partitions and let Windows create a new set. THEN you are ready to install Windows again.

 

[dimar]

Would be nice if Microsoft created a kind of log of applications responsible for registry and files that are not part of the personal files, and let the user clean it. And also drivers that are unused for more than a year for example.

 

[Ogotai]

the laptops i have, came with mechanical drives, i just replaced them with an SSD about 10 mins after turning them on ( just looking at what was installed ), and installed windows off the USB install that i grabbed off of microsofts site. once i installed every thing, and the drivers, i cleared off the mechanical drives, and used them for something else

 

[Colif]

I seen enough resets go too far and remove windows. Its normally easier to clean install since you will need to reinstall all your programs again. Fresh start blows away all the cobwebs