Old school laptop

[CRUSADER9121]

I recently acquired an old i2 windows 7 pro laptop and was wondering how do I factory reset it for personal use without knowing the login?

[thevictor390]

There was no standard method to do this on Windows 7. You will need to either reinstall Windows or see if the device manufacturer has recovery tools.

[CRUSADER9121]

2 minutes ago, thevictor390 said:

There was no standard method to do this on Windows 7. You will need to either reinstall Windows or see if the device manufacturer has recovery tools.

I'm goos with reinstalling windows 7 on it I just need to know how to do it without knowing the password from the old user. And I tried to log in but there's a domain on it and it need s a specific password from the school isd.

[thevictor390]

You need a flash drive (or if going old-school, DVD burner) and another computer. The problem is you most likely will need to rebuy Windows. The license used probably relies on being on that domain in the school. You can look around to see if it still has a product key sticker on it, if so that key should be good all the way up to Windows 10.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d

 

This might be a good opportunity to try Linux! But you will still need a flash drive and another computer.

[unkn0wn1]

Sometimes manufacturers include recovery partitions that you can use to restore windows. You could look to see if your device has it. They are typically accessible during boot by pressing one of the function keys (it depends on the manufacturer).

[CRUSADER9121]

11 minutes ago, unkn0wn1 said:

Sometimes manufacturers include recovery partitions that you can use to restore windows. You could look to see if your device has it. They are typically accessible during boot by pressing one of the function keys (it depends on the manufacturer).

I'll see when I get home but the problem I'm having is that I need to wipe it before I can do anything. That I need help with.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Just format the damn hdd and reinstall windows

 

You can either stick with windows 7 or go straight to windows 10 ltsc (pre debloated enterprise windows 10)

[CRUSADER9121]

11 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Just format the damn hdd and reinstall windows

 

You can either stick with windows 7 or go straight to windows 10 ltsc (pre debloated enterprise windows 10)

Ok I'll try that once I figure out how to do that in bios on windows 7

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 minute ago, CRUSADER9121 said:

Ok I'll try that once I figure out how to do that in bios on windows 7

No you just need a bootable windows usb, you can format with that on one of the installation steps

[CRUSADER9121]

Just now, Somerandomtechyboi said:

No you just need a bootable windows usb, you can format with that on one of the installation steps

Oh ok do you know where I can make one for windows 7 apparently Microsoft doesn't support it but if you think this dinosaur can handle windows 10 with an i2 processor then I'll just use that

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 minutes ago, CRUSADER9121 said:

Oh ok do you know where I can make one for windows 7 apparently Microsoft doesn't support it but if you think this dinosaur can handle windows 10 with an i2 processor then I'll just use that

Just download a windows 7 iso off some other website

 

as for windows 10 itll problably run ltsc just fine since ltsc is already debloated just gotta disable all the telemetry when you first install it. You can also just seaech it up and download it off some other site

[CRUSADER9121]

6 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Just download a windows 7 iso off some other website

 

as for windows 10 itll problably run ltsc just fine since ltsc is already debloated just gotta disable all the telemetry when you first install it. You can also just seaech it up and download it off some other site

Hmm ok I'll try it.