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  • Uninstall Windows?

    From RonTheGuy@21:1/5 to All on Wed Oct 21 16:29:17 2020
    Was considering buying a used PC. Booted from a USB drive prepared by the seller, then installed Windows 10 but did not activate it. Decided not to buy the PC. The Windows installation is personalized for me; how do I remove my personalization or the Windows install? I don’t want someone else
    activating that Windows install as me.

    Ron, the humblest guy in town.

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  • From Roger Blake@21:1/5 to RonTheGuy on Sun Nov 22 19:05:11 2020
    On 2020-10-21, RonTheGuy <ron@null.invalid> wrote:
    Was considering buying a used PC. Booted from a USB drive prepared by the seller, then installed Windows 10 but did not activate it. Decided not to buy the PC. The Windows installation is personalized for me; how do I remove my personalization or the Windows install? I don’t want someone else activating that Windows install as me.

    Here's one way:

    https://dban.org/

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  • From Danart@21:1/5 to All on Mon Dec 19 05:44:42 2022
    RonTheGuy wrote:
    Was considering buying a used PC. Booted from a USB drive prepared
    by the
    seller, then installed Windows 10 but did not activate it. Decided
    not to buy
    the PC. The Windows installation is personalized for me; how do I
    remove my
    personalization or the Windows install? I don’t want someone else activating that Windows install as me.

    Ron, the humblest guy in town.

    When you install windows and
    it is not activated, this means their is no actual key linked to the installation and you could use the operating system but you will have
    that sticker "windows not activated" sticker, and be limited
    to personalizing the desktop. That is it. Windows 10 is virtually
    free.

    All activating does is

    A. Tie the install to the machine. I forget if this prevents you from
    moving the install to another machine similar to XP ( which you could
    bypass ).

    B. Activate for the next 30 or 60 years ( I forget what year it was )
    and you could move from one machine to the next.


    Personally I am using Windows 10 without any activation, because I
    plan to migrate it to another machine.

    .........

    If you want to "uninstall", you could go back into the
    installation and just reformat the hard drive for installation thus
    "erasing" the previous install.

    What you have is a clean installation. As with an Apple device with no
    key tied to it. Clinically Windows 10 is free while not activated.
    Again you will have that watermark and be limited to a bland looking
    desktop.


    This is a response to the post seen at: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=574421570#574421570

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