Wanting a fresh start and clean install on my personal laptop (windows 7 64 bit home) without re-installing the OS.

[empty1388]

I have a 2 years old windows laptop I use for gaming and light academic work(college student- nothing more than Microsoft office or equivalent google tools) with good hardware, but purchased it with windows 7 instead of 10 as I simply preferred the older OS. Recently, I have been experiencing some weird issues such as my Nvidia driver software not patching properly and many other issues with my hard drive, although it doesn't seem to be corrupted. Since I have nothing important stored on the laptop and can easily re-install everything except the OS, I was wondering if a reset to factory settings would be the best option for cleaning house and starting fresh, clearing away old files and clutter without having to reinstall the operating system? The way I understand it, a full reset like that would clear off any old files and leave me with a clean installation of windows 7, allowing me to properly install my hardware drivers if there is for some reason a major issue. I am not ruling out a hardware issue but the computer isn't that old and the symptoms I am experiencing do not appear to be hardware related, and a system reset would make them much more obvious if they continued. There may be other more efficient and complicated ways of fixing the issue, but I would prefer to simply empty the machine of everything except the OS and start fresh, are there any drawbacks I should be aware of before doing so?

TL;DR- My computer feels cluttered and I want to make it fresh and start new, without having to re-install the operating system and potentially have to buy a new copy, since I don't have a disk copy of windows 7. I know how to reset the OS to factory settings, wondering if that will achieve my goal of emptying the hard drive of non-essential files and still have my OS remain usable?

 

[Herc08]

Yes resetting should be good. If it came pre-loaded, there is sometime a recovery partition. However, Microsoft has a creation tool (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7 ) where you can create your own ISO. You don't have to worry about a key or anything like that, since the key is tied to the hardware.

My question is, if you are able just delete your partition, and start fresh, would you? It seems like you want to do a factory reset, but not reload the OS.

 

[empty1388]

Yes. Basically, I want it exactly as it came out of the box when I got it, OS preloaded and ready for the normal start up procedures. I might need to manually install the Nvidia software , I don't mind. I don't want to recover anything from what I've got now. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I don't want to bring it along for the ride.

 

[geofelt]

On your prebuilt, there should be a sticker with the COA and the activation code.
Or... a free app called :magical jellybean keyfinder" can find it for you.
Write it down, you will use it to reactivate your clean install.

Borrow any windows 7 dvd to do a install.
Or, you can download such a dvd from Microsoft.

You can do a clean install and use the activation code you saved. No need to buy a new copy.

One thing you might do first is to run malwarebytes free edition.
You may have accumulated lots of junk.