Windows 7 Home Premium Wipe Clean
Martin Thrasher
I recently got a PC refresh and my company just gifted me my old Dell Latitude 7480. I am trying to create a machine that I can use for personal purposes and removing everything about it related to my employer.
I reset to BIOS defaults, booted from the USB, and got most of the way through the Windows installation process and had it say, "Welcome to \[MY COMPANY\]!" I don't understand how it can still have any record of being my old work computer as I've reset to BIOS defaults and wiped the hard drive.
You should install Windows Home or Pro instead of the Enterprise edition. Enterprise requires a volume license from the business. Private owners must use windows home or pro. You might have to purchase a new windows license for your personal use.
That said, is my service tag tied to my employer? Clearly the computer "wants" to sign in as a work PC. It also installed Netskope by default which is what my company uses. Seems I'm not fully detached from the PC that started life as a work computer, though I created a new user on installation.
Hi! I'm in a similar situation, and with all of us WFH, I can't take my gifted computer in to the tech department to "wipe" it. I have done the complete drive erasure in the boot setup menu, but I'm not able to update the BIOS, and I too am getting forced into the "sign into your work or school account". Yes, I already have a home license for W10/11.
Has anyone been able to get over this issue? I'm still stuck on the organization login, seems like it's speaking to the Microsoft services and somehow autopilot setup is taking over, and in return prompting for company credentials. Can someone please help?
Wow, I have the exact same issue. Bought a refurbished laptop on Amazon, somehow, on boot, it keeps asking for a FinThrive account. I completely wiped the drive, reinstalled a fresh copy of Windows from a USB drive that I made from the Media Creation Tool, it keep asking me for that account. Like if there was something ahead of the SSD drive that prevented me from installing my copy of Windows, something maybe in the BIOS.
I installed successfully, without issue, a copy of Linux Mint, it boots, it works, but for an unknown reason, that particular laptop is preventing me from installing my copy of Windows. There's something, somewhere in the BIOS that prevent me from doing anything Windows related when it comes to reinstallation. Linux, fine, it installed on the SSD and works great. As soon as I try Windows, it gives me no option other than connect to a network and then connect to that FinThrive account.
This worked with the "Windows install" media from Dell, I had a few problems with install media from Microsoft as it didn't recognize some of network drivers so making connecting to the internet during setup problematic. I suggest using the DELL install disk
This is because your IT department enabled Windows Autopilot in your org Azure/M365 tenant. Windows is checking device indentificator against MS server during installation process and if S/N will be found, than company policies and OOBE will be applied instead of standard OOBE experience. You need ask your IT team to remove device S/N or service tag from Windows Autopilot registered devices in Azure. Or you can use offline OOBE mode to install Windows but first way is much better.
I have an issue with the New Teams. In the old Teams I had access to a guest account and could easily switch. After updating to New Teams - the account that get shown has a combination of the guest org and my own org. I have no way to switch to the guest account.
Then when I log out I see a list of other accounts I have used in the past. These are not guest accounts but actual login accounts. I don't have access to them anymore and they are not listed as organisations I'm a member of.
I have uninstalled Teams, deleted cache several time but I can not get everything deleted!
I have created a new windows profile to test and the issue does not appear there. (not the solution I want)
So how do I COMPLETELY DELETE / UNISTALL Teams? I want everything gone from my work profile so I can get a clean install that works.
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Windows Credential Manager just shows 2 credentials for Teams, nothing new / different there.
This leads me to believe that the account info is stored somewhere else on my laptop. The question is where?
@ErikG1970 No unfortunately no solution. Apparently the settings are so deeply rooted I can't get rid of them. I even left the organisation I was quest off to see if I could log in to the new version. This worked. However the minute I re-joined the organisation the problem returned. I've now created a new windows profile since there is no other solution.
If you manage to find a solution please so let us know.
I've looked for this answer online and have come across the "systemreset -factoryreset" command which works, but it comes up with the prompt asking if I want to keep my files or remove everything, I want to remove everything, but without the prompt.
We are not doing this from any pre-exiting images, and our laptops are running the pre-loaded Windows 10 Pro install, we are just using the in-built Windows 10 "reset this PC" feature as we have no MDM configured. We just want the laptops to be totally reset so they don't contain any company information, we're not bothered about completing the OOBE once they are wiped.
We are trying to accomplish this remotely as our users are all at home, so I need to automate it and have no user involvement in the process, I just want it to factory reset, and bring the laptop up to the off-the-shelf state configuration. We have the facility to push commands and scripts to the laptops so was hoping to do this via powershell.
The systemreset command will show interface to user and it is behavior by design , however if you are able to manage devices using Configuration Manager, you could do it using Full Wipe, take a look at:
-us/mem/configmgr/mdm/deploy-use/wipe-lock-reset-devices
From what I know there is no script to run it in silence mode and wipe system and it is behavior by design, so let say if there is possibility to do so, cybercriminals might run that script and user will lose Windows but it is available in Configuration Manager or Intune, it means PC is being managed by trusted administrator.
$methodname can bei either "doWipeMethod" or "doWipeProtectedMethod". The later one will also wipe all data from the disks, especially if you want to refurbish the devices. The downside is that "doWipeProtectedMethod" can leave some clients (depending on configuration and hardware) in an unbootable state.
Additionally "doWipeMethod" can be canceled by the user (power cycle for example), "doWipeProtectedMethod" cannot be canceled. It automatically resumes after a reboot until done. The higher risk ist worth it most of the time. If you want to be sure that the devices will be in a usable state after the wipe, use "doWipeMethod" instead.
If it is important to fully wipe the data from the disks (i.e. non-recoverable) you should make sure that all disks are bitlocker encrypted. Only with encryption you can be sure that no data is recoverable with this method.
Another way, which you can do remotely and without psexec (group policy for example), would be to create a scheduled task running as SYSTEM and executing the script. You can then execute the task on demand or with a time/date schedule.
The "OEM stuff" is found in C:\Recovery\*. If you remove all contents in this folder before you initiate the device reset, it should restore a clean windows installation without any "OEM stuff". Keep in mind though, that certain driver packages will be migrated to the new installation. Sometimes these can contain additional software packages included in the device driver package (for example audio control panels from the audio driver).
@dretzer I realized the computer I was running it on didn't have a recovery partition so even running the "systemreset -cleanpc" command wasn't working.
Kaseya allows you to run scripts as System - so even though I was running locally in picture - I was trying as System most of the time.
Thanks for the help either way.
yes. thanks. I get less HP stuff restored after a reset if I delete C:\Recevery before, but still some bits I do not want. where is it getting these last bits from that performing a fresh start from intune seems to ignore? I want omit these too
Might have to look into manual cloud reinstall at shift-f10 on first boot on each machine or a bootable USB with an unattended xml to just blow the hard drive away and start again without user interaction.
well, I wouldn't plan on doing any transcoding, but with 2GB of ram, it does pretty well. I'll probably install it at my parents house, since they aren't power users or add-in crazy... it's pretty minimum requirements, but seems to work ok.
Anonymous - my guess is that you actually need 2048MB of memory, I haven't validated that thought. I know we have a note that says that the 2GB systems might not be enough if the video card uses shared memory.
Dave - you really only need to make sure the drive is formatted, it doesn't matter how you do that. If the drive isn't formatted, the system will fail to boot to the thumbdrive. (this is where I spent most of my time)
Make sure the password you use is at least 8 characters with at least one uppercase, lowercase, and number/symbol involved otherwise, I don't think the server fully installs itself. You have to visit the IP address of the server to finish the install (and this is why I would highly recommend assigning a static IP to your server's Ethernet jack)
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