Return Laptop to "as bought" condition

[ankonaskiff17]

I bought the laptop indicated, refurbished off of Amazon for my father. Went through and did his Microsoft registration, etc. 

First off, laptop is fine. More a setup question

Now, father doesn't want, but he wants to give laptop to one of his grandchildren. My father used very minimally but things like his Microsoft account etc still linked to laptop.

How do I return the laptop to fresh out of the box, ready to setup, configuration.

A wrinkle may be that when I bought laptop it was running Windows 10. I didn't turn off a couple of days ago and it has updated the OS to Windows 11. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I just checked to see if that model notebook is supported by the HP cloud recovery tool and it is.

You can use the HP cloud recovery tool to create a bootable USB recovery drive that will reinstall W10, the drivers and the software that originally came with the notebook.

Here is an info link for how to use the utility...

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool (Windows 10) | HP® Customer Support

Some folks have indicated on the newer models that HP has revised the installation files to install W110 and not W10.

I don't know if that will happen to that model or not.

[ankonaskiff17]

The tool appears to have worked but it is not without it's own issues, at least for me. I would not recommend using it to the average computer user.

The directions for use on website have potential to cause trouble for many users. Turning off Secure Boot and boot order in BIOS is not as described in directions.

Poking around in BIOS not for the faint of heart in general and I imagine majority of users don't know it exists.  Confronting the casual user with accessing BIOS and then having them find settings that aren't in BIOS at same location as instructions is risky. 

Once past that initial bump in the road, after changing the boot order in BIOS I was able to run tool but it had more surprises.

As the tool runs it has various prompts and flags that the user has to take appropriate action with. Most centered around "Do you want to recover files or wipe the slate clean. I wanted to wipe the slate clean so clicked appropriately. That is also a point of risk for the casual user.

So process runs its sequence but it never gives a defined  "FINISHED" end point. I let it loop through process at least 4 times worrying that the install was missing something and maybe it would give me a sign it was done.

Ultimately I pulled USB drive at what seemed where the process should have been complete. Went back in to BIOS to put boot order back to normal and released machine to see what would happen. 

It did as I hoped and started the more typical startup sequence of a fresh out of the box computer. 

Also, this is a hours long process from time you download Cloud Tool to the time computer is ready to be used by the owner of computer. I ended up going to bed and left laptop to do its thing.

At this point I don't know if it is Windows 10 or 11 because it is only showing small blue background window as setup has a ways to go yet.

[ankonaskiff17]

An addendum to my previous post.

The Windows installation, NOT the Cloud Tool asks if I want to install Windows 10 or 11 and recommends 11 which is what I have chosen.

To me it appears Cloud Tool wipes drive, lays down a very basic Windows OS image, enough to get network/internet connectivity  and for it to then connect to MS to commence downloading files, Configures machine to owner, via email, PIN, password entry then downloads all files common to both Win 10 and 11.  Asks 10 or 11 and heads off in which direction is chosen.

So...

Tool works, risky for casual user, appears to lay down very basic version of Windows OS. 

The basic Windows OS then does the heavy lifting of installing full and most current version of either Windows 10 or 11

[ankonaskiff17]

I would call your original post as solution but I think users should read my whole commentary.  So not going to check as solution as it appears doing that hides the intermediate comments which people need to know up front.