I have a dell laptop and, as I’m just about to start a new semester, I want it to be clean and fresh. Since it’s dell however, it comes with some bloat baked on. I want to get rid of that. Anyone know a better method than using Settings > Recovery > Reset?
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a clean install.
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$ sudo rm -rf *
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Nuke and Pave.
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Doesn’t the recovery partition still contain the dell junk?
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That’s what I’m trying to get around…
Safe mode>uninstall the stuff>???>profit
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As said in the first post. Do a clean install (i.e. use mediacreationtool) and wipe the recovery if you are sure. This only gives you the microsoft bloatware and not the dell bloatware 
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If you go that route there is this.
https://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
But I recommend downloading a clean Windows ISO from Microsoft and seeing if your current serial number will activate it. Then use Ninite to put crap of your choosing back onto it.
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or dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX bs=1024 count=1 where X is the “drive letter” of the drive you wish to wipe (sda is the norm on a laptop)
then do a clean install of windows from the windows dvd (i usually make a bootable usb 3.x thumb drive) you downloaded from $micro$oft.
here is the iso from microsoft
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That doesn’t exist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Then he will need to look for the missing drivers. It can be a pain.
Other than acquiring a fresh iso from Microsoft and doing a reinstall there will be no perfect way to remove every single trace of bloat from the system.
Resetting the laptop will just return it to the point that you received it from Dell (with their arbitrary executables for everything).
However, there are some things I can recommend that will help you get rid of the bloat:
- Tron Script
- Revo Uninstaller - (the free one is fine)
- Bleachbit
your right.
should be “a fresh install (complete with all its spyware aka telemetry) of windows from an official $micro$oft image and not one molested by dell,hp,lenovo , or some random pirate.”
In my experience as long as your OEM has a good support page it’s usually not that bad, even if they have some weird hardware. I would try the hardware manufacturer’s site first before the OEM’s as sometimes OEM driver packages can be a bit “crapified”, but sometimes you need them because the OEM got some strange bit of hardware – like Asus’ bloody Smart Gesture garbage.
Lol that was a good one
not good enough
still nope
not descriptive enough
not even close
you’re on the right path… but stopped short
Here’s the correct way:
Step 1: Wipe the shit out of your drive (use linux bootable media):
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=8M&&dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=8M&&dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=8M
Step 2: Install Windows 10 from the latest ISO
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Explanation: By wiping the drive twice with pseudo random data, it will overwrite any slack space that may exist on a SSD. The final zero out is optional, but it’s good to do at least the first few MB of the drive. This way there is absolutely nothing recoverable from the prior system.
Then, installing the latest copy of Windows 10 will get you the best experience possible, and have the majority of drivers built in. It should be easy peasy.
Then you have to update, but that goes without saying.
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Would the OEM licence code on the laptop activate a copy of W10 from the MS website?
Yes. It even chooses the correct version of Windows (home/pro) for your license.
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IIRC This is only if you use an OEM copy. If you use a retail copy it will not work.
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