Clearing a Win-10 laptop

[dddave]

I have a very inexpensive Acer "Cloudbook" laptop that I purchased in the US latelast year to tide me over while I was recuperating from surgery.  It's not much use to me now that I'm here in Thailand as I already have a decent machine.  The Acer only has 2gb un-expandable RAM and a miniscule 32gb eMMC flash memory of which half is used by Win-10...not even enough room left to update.

I plan to give it to a friend who has a young daughter who might get some use out of it as a first computer.  Before I do that, I need to clean it out of any of my personal stuff, pictures, email and data.  I actually don't use many applications so there is not a lot.  

I know with phones, it's just a matter of doing a re-set but I have never had to do it on a computer.  What is the best way to make sure the machine is clear without endangering the OS? I assume I will delete all my Google accounts and the Microsoft account that Win-10 requires.  Are there any free applications that do it all for you?

 

Also; while I have your attention, an unrelated question.  I just realized that I am running both "Ad-Block" & "Ad-Block+" at the same time.  Is that recommended or is it like security software where one is better than two?

Thanks

[Forkinhades]

Is your hard drive partitioned? Do you have a C and a D drive?
On my Lenovo there is a D drive, with all required files to do a clean install.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Thaivisa Connect mobile app

Or maybe a set up CD/DVD that came with the laptop.

Some laptop have a small button, where you insert a pen, and that can do a clean install aswell.

Local shop could do it for 200 baht :)

[Aachen]

What Operating System? (Windows 10 for instance has a Reset to factory defaults)

[Forkinhades]

Yes he has windows 10

Sent from my SM-G935F using Thaivisa Connect mobile app

[maxpower]

Search Google for -  Clean a windows 10 PC before selling - you will find tips and win10 built in tools

[impulse]

GF has a cheap Acer Cloudbook that came with 2Gb and a 32G EMMC.  First thing I had her do was upgrade to 8Gb of RAM.  I don't have a solution for the EMMC, but I bought her a 64Gb SD chip and she's using it quite nicely.

[dddave]

4 hours ago, maxpower said:

Search Google for -  Clean a windows 10 PC before selling - you will find tips and win10 built in tools

Good suggestion  I should have done that first.

3 hours ago, impulse said:

GF has a cheap Acer Cloudbook that came with 2Gb and a 32G EMMC.  First thing I had her do was upgrade to 8Gb of RAM.  I don't have a solution for the EMMC, but I bought her a 64Gb SD chip and she's using it quite nicely.

Must have been a different model because this one has the RAM built into the motherboard and is un-expandable. I do use a 64gb thumb drive for most storage but since I only used it for email and websurfing, there was little I needed to save. 

 

Thanks for the replies.

[impulse]

48 minutes ago, dddave said:

Must have been a different model because this one has the RAM built into the motherboard and is un-expandable. I do use a 64gb thumb drive for most storage but since I only used it for email and websurfing, there was little I needed to save.

 

My bad.  I bought an Acer Netbook with 2Gb RAM and a hard drive.  She liked it, so she bought what she thought was the same model, but the cheap bastards had changed from a HD to eMMC  to take cost out.  Both of ours had one RAM slot and we replaced the 2Gb SIMM with an 8GB.

 

Looks like they took some more cost out...

 

On an aside, can you even get Win10 to run okay on 2Gb?  I couldn't do it.

 

[Chicog]

Search for "Reset this PC" and it will take you straight to the appropriate tool.

[Carib]

As Chicog said, there is a reset tool available in W10. 

[dddave]

16 hours ago, impulse said:

On an aside, can you even get Win10 to run okay on 2Gb?  I couldn't do it.

Page loads, especially media pages with lots of ads are slow and jumpy, improved a bit using Ad-Block. YouTube runs ok. I really didn't run any demanding applications on it,  just Gmail, YouTube, some news sites and of course, ThaiVisa.

Disabling some of the pre-installed bloatwear like Norton a-v helped, I just relied on the Win-10 built in security. As said before, there isn't enough room in memory to even do a Win. update.  I'm sure there is a workaround using a USB stick but I pretty much gave up on the machine once I was back in Thailand. I don't regret buying it. It was a "Re-furb" on Amazon for $99 inc. shipping and it served my needs for the nearly 3 months I was recuperating.  It should be ok for a 10 year old's first computer, it will help her to learn patience.