Win 10, set back to "out of box"?

ecc83

Well-known member
Yesterday I received a Lenovo T430 Think Pad. Refurbished "as new" and 12 month warranty, certainly looks fine.

It is for my son when he visits at Christmas but naturally I needed to check it out and make sure it was all working for him.

Getting registered with W10 is a trial! Not helped I suppose by the fact that MY details were already with Ms from a computer I setup for 10 when the freebie was around. However, I eventually managed it and (not easy either!) got W10 activated.

My question is therefore, can I set the machine back to as it was out of the box so son can start afresh with it when he returns to France? It is now a bit of a mess with my details in it.

I shall of course ask the suppliers as well

Dave.
 
See if this will work for you - same procedure, but the second one goes into a bit more detail about it :

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026528/windows-reset-or-reinstall-windows-10

How to Reset Windows 10 to Default Factory Settings

Many thanks. Son will be the one to do this back in France so there will be no IP address debacle*. Actually there is a Recovery Partition on the SSD so that might be the easiest route?

My next call is the suppliers.

*If that sounds like I know what I am talking about? Probably not!

Dave.
 
Many thanks. Son will be the one to do this back in France so there will be no IP address debacle*. Actually there is a Recovery Partition on the SSD so that might be the easiest route?

My next call is the suppliers.

*If that sounds like I know what I am talking about? Probably not!

Dave.

Recovery partition should leave it in off-the-shelf, state.
If you want it to be like he just bought and opened it, I'd run that. :)
 
I have had a reply from the Amazon "machine"

"Start run and type, sysprep then choose the Out of Box Experience" NOT! Going to do that here as I cannot face the setup SNFU again!

Ta all.

Dave.
 
If you create a new user, that would allow him to have his own setup without having to start from scratch.
 
If you create a new user, that would allow him to have his own setup without having to start from scratch.

Ok I shall look into "creating a new user in W10" I have had lots of "advice" from others, most of which I don't understand.
One idea I had was to make an image of the hard drive as it is now (my setup) and then if he does have a problem back in La Belle he could reset to the UK condition. I have been told that might not be a good idea.

Had a varder. "New user" does not seem to make him an administrator? I think he is going to need that.

Dave.
 
Can't help 'ya with Win10, but you mentioned the recovery partition. I don't know if your machine has a utility to backup the recovery partition factory install from the SSD, but it might be worth browsing around at the Lenovo tools and see if it's doable. My own ASUS machine has a backup wizard to make a set of DVD's. I did the DVD backups and then went a step further creating ISO disk images of the DVD's in the event the created DVD go south.
 

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Windows 10 has a built-in clean install feature. Hit the windows key and start typing "reset this PC". Follow the direction from there.

This doesn't disturb your documents/pics/videos/etc but it reinstalls Windows and wipes all of your applications. It even creates a handy html file on your desktop to help remind you what all applications you had installed before the reset.
 
Ok I shall look into "creating a new user in W10" I have had lots of "advice" from others, most of which I don't understand.
One idea I had was to make an image of the hard drive as it is now (my setup) and then if he does have a problem back in La Belle he could reset to the UK condition. I have been told that might not be a good idea.

Had a varder. "New user" does not seem to make him an administrator? I think he is going to need that.

Dave.

You should be able to give him admin privilege
 
Oooo! Thanks Mark!* I had forgotten about recovery DVDs that you could make as a "one time" copy to fix W7. I shall look into that option since I could do that here and put them in the lappy bag.

I am presently hunting for a modest (sub a nifty) shockproof (he IS a musician after all!) pocket hard drive. Bit hissed off. I don't need 1TB and £90 but want better than 160G and twenty five quid! Seems nothing in the middle? See, the Lenovo has a 256 SSD but I want to impress upon son that he should keep that a good 50% (?) empty to keep speed up.

Does not have to be SSD just USB 3.0 and fairly rugged. The other accessory I am looking for is a mini Display port to HDMI adaptor or cable. Why not JUST an HDMI port like this HP laptop pray?

*Thankstoo of course to all you other guys helping this PC numpty. (getting daughter to buy me the latest edition of W10 for dummies for my 73thrd in Nov)

Dave.
 
Hah! Hah! A Google finds me a thread in the Microsoft Community and it seems W10 comes WITHOUT any DVD support!

There appears to be a protracted procedure to get Ten to run a DVD backup but not for me! I have already installed VLC Media player since I am eff'ed if I am paying MS for an app to run DVDs. Not tried burning yet but if that is a problem I shall give my ill gottens to Nero. Had that forever and know how it works.

Mind you, son has the Samplitude Pro x 3 suite that was on offer some months ago, bet there is burning gear in that.

Dave.
 
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