There's nothing left.

"Thats about as descriptive as I can be for now. Long time member here (used to be indianacarnie back in winsseven days.) My problem in a nutshell....... I recently inherited a small amount of cash so splurged on this magnificent machine. At least I assume its magnificent as I've yet be able to do anything with it but pull out my hair. I unboxed it, put it together and went for a coke and fell ..... breaking my hip in 3 places. After a week in the hospital, I get home to find that my sweet loving Sister set my machine up for me "so I could have something to do". My sister knows NOTHING about computers. N.O.T.H.I.N.G. I now have or had I should say a almost totally useless machine to me. There were parts of her account, her work account and generic windows account. Have spent 3 days now trying to get some kind of sanity and have achieved nothing but here.

Yes, laugh at me all you will, but you have it. No backups. I need everything from my MS account credentials to my lowliest account passwords. Not to mention a few hundred bucks for movies from their store.

I'm afraid I already know the answer to this but is there ANYTHING I can do to get that account back? Even remnants would help. MS account especially. If anyone anywhere can do it I know the men and women of elevenforum can find the way. And please .... I know it will be hard but try not to berate me too hard and long about the backup situation.

Since this is a brand new computer and you have no User files that must be saved; Just Reset Windows.
Go to Settings/System/Recovery/Reset this PC/Remove Everything.
This will put your computer back to Factory Defaults and you will have to login to your Microsoft User Profile; do all Windows Updates, and install any 3rd party apps you may use.
Since you have not setup this computer before your injury (no laughing matter, BTW) You will not have any saved passwords or apps. Your Microsoft account and password are saved on the Microsoft sever. If you sign into your Browser (ie) Edge, Chrome, Firefox and turned on Sync your saved passwords to web sites, Bookmarks, and Settings will be imported in automatically to the browser.

I'm confused.

From your account, you hadn't put any programs or data onto the new PC.

If it was my PC, I'd want to go through the OOBE (out of box experience) again. That should set up the PC as if new.


Short version:

Bring up a run box (windows key + r).

Copy "%WINDIR%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe" (without the quotes) into it. Run it.

That'll bring up this box:



Just click OK.

Good luck.

No need for sysprep. @Spunk suggestion is the best one. "Reset and remove everything" reverses all the "favors" your sister did for you and lets you create your user account clean again.

glasskuter said:

No need for sysprep. @Spunk suggestion is the best one. "Reset and remove everything" reverses all the "favors" your sister did for you and lets you create your user account clean again.

Click to expand...

Maybe so. But re-running the OOBE should be pretty simple, too.