what is most thorough way to factory reset windows 10?

Hi there

I bought a windows 10 laptop about a week ago that I now wish to return to the vendor that I bought it from.

For the week that I had it though, I used it as if it were my own. Set it up with various passwords, installed a few bits of software, and also on things like google chrome etc. , I logged into my standard account that I have synced across all my devices.

When it comes to restoring Windows 10 to factory default, it all seems pretty straightforward as per the below Microsoft Support page:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-c2c1fbceb8dd

However, it occurs to me that if I were to reset my laptop as per the instructions on the above link, won't all my details still technically be stored on memory on that laptop? -- and so in theory, whoever is the next owner of this laptop, assuming he is sufficiently skilled, could perhaps pull information off the laptop that could pose a security risk to me .. ?

I should say that I think it would be quite unlikely that any subsequent owner of this laptop would either have the inclination or the skills to do this, but it still is on the back of my mind that it may technically be possible to recover my sensitive date from that laptop.

Any and all advice or feedback on the above discussion would be most welcome!

Samuria said:

Welcome to the forum. Your talking about to things here a factory reset is set by the maker and will set it back as you got it when you bought it along with any software from the makers rhe makers will have a way of doing this like press a certain key on start you need to check your manual.

Your refering to a refresh of windows which is just MS refreshing the copy of windows and wont include any softaware which the makers supplied

Thanks for clearing that up. In that case it sounds like a factory reset is the best action to perform before returning the laptop back to the vendor.

See this tutorial: How to Reset Windows 10

Remove everything

Restore factory settings

Reset Windows 10

You didn't give us the laptop brand and type.
Some brands, like HP, has a BIOS routine to format the C: partition and restore a factory recovery image from the Factory Recovery partition.
On a HP, turn on the computer and repeatedly press the F11 key, about once every second, until Recovery Manager opens. Under I need help immediately, click System Recovery.