[SOLVED] What factors affect how fast a windows reset happens?

[ShangWang]

Does the larger size of a hard drive affect it? What about how much space files were taking up at the time?
Will uninstalling programs and deleting files manually speed up the process?

 

[Colif]

It depends on what type of reset as well. Full or partial.
It depends how full C was before you start - resets only touch C drive, so other drives attached shouldn't slow it down at all.

A Full reset wipes entire C parttion and if its several TB in size and only a hdd (not an NVME or SSD) then it can take hours. But if you have an NVME or SSD, it shouldn't take any longer than an hour or so... at most.
If a reset takes more than 12 hours, its not working. More than a day and its stopped. I have seen people report times like that and unless they had 100tb hdd then the PC is frozen.

Partial resets save your info and only reinstall windows. Shouldn't take as long.

Will uninstalling programs and deleting files manually speed up the process?

I don't think so, resets wipe the windows partition, and use the windows image file to reinstall windows as brand new. Deleting things before hand is unlikely to speed it up.

Honestly, I would clean install rather than reset as I have seen resets remove windows completely or break in weird ways, clean is safer and PC will feel faster afterwards.

 

[ShangWang]

Honestly, I would clean install rather than reset as I have seen resets remove windows completely or break in weird ways, clean is safer and PC will feel faster afterwards.

Yeah, I tried resets myself in the past and it ended up in disaster. I only clean install now.

I meant a reset of windows, as in you keep your files. Thinking about it, I don't think how full your drive is affects the speed of a reset like that.
Though what I'm wondering is why drives that have a higher total storage size would take longer to reset.

Just to confirm, you're saying the number of GB that are being taken up makes partial resets longer or the TOTAL storage a drive has? If so why?

 

[Colif]

Two types of reset offered:
Full where it removes everything and puts windows back into its OOBE form (Out of Box Experience)
Partial which keeps user info and librry folders

i said total resets are longer as it has to remove more programs/files than a partial does.

Both remove all non Microsoft programs. But one keeps your user info and contents of library folders (Music, Pictures, Documents, Videos) so when you restart it at least knows who you are, but you still need to reinstall programs.

Windows has blurred it further with refresh as well
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-your-pc-51391d9a-eb0a-84a7-69e4-c2c1fbceb8dd

 

[ShangWang]

Two types of reset offered:
Full where it removes everything and puts windows back into its OOBE form (Out of Box Experience)
Partial which keeps user info and librry folders

i said total resets are longer as it has to remove more programs/files than a partial does.

Both remove all non Microsoft programs. But one keeps your user info and contents of library folders (Music, Pictures, Documents, Videos) so when you restart it at least knows who you are, but you still need to reinstall programs.

Windows has blurred it further with refresh as well
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-your-pc-51391d9a-eb0a-84a7-69e4-c2c1fbceb8dd

I see, thank you. You mentioned something about a 100tb hdd so I was wondering what you were trying to imply when total storage and used storage was put into play for speed here.

 

[Colif]

if the C partition was 100tb then I would/could see its size being a factor in speed of the reset. It would all come down to how full it is.

HDD with that capacity don't exist (without using RAID) but if it was full of user data I could see it slowing a reset. SSD & NVME would use TRIM and windows would tell it what areas of storage to mark as empty. Main reason I mentioned size is hdd are slower in general to NVME so any operation on them will take longer

there is no one rule for all. It all comes down to usage I think, and speed of processor as well. All sorts of things. I am not blind to knowing there are edge cases for this sort of thing.

 

[ShangWang]

if the C partition was 100tb then I would/could see its size being a factor in speed of the reset. It would all come down to how full it is.

HDD with that capacity don't exist (without using RAID) but if it was full of user data I could see it slowing a reset. SSD & NVME would use TRIM and windows would tell it what areas of storage to mark as empty. Main reason I mentioned size is hdd are slower in general to NVME so any operation on them will take longer

there is no one rule for all. It all comes down to usage I think, and speed of processor as well. All sorts of things. I am not blind to knowing there are edge cases for this sort of thing.

Sounds good, I don't think I would even do a reset anytime soon, let alone a partial one but the only factor that matters from what you said is storage size "usage" thank you!

 

[Colif]

I never plan on using reset. But sometimes its the last choice. It can refresh drivers so if your PC is having odd problems it beats a clean install in some ways. I feel it leaves a mess as after a reset the PC has no idea whats on the other drives until you tell it. Some people like to install programs to the non os drive, and they all get left as ghosts on the drive after a reset.

Last time I used reset was probably Windows ME days. It is probably better now but back then all it taught me was do a clean install is faster in long run. And check speakers are on before reinstalling windows because you can't hear any sound, but thats another story