Did you get a new computer and want to get rid of your old Windows 11 system? Or you may want to refresh your existing version of Windows 11 and do not want to lose all of your files. If so, it may be time to reset Windows 11, and here is how to do it.

In previous articles, we have shown you How to perform a repair upgrade of Windows 11 and How to perform a clean installation of Windows 11. Resetting Windows 11 falls somewhere between them; you want a fresh version of Windows but want to keep all your files.

Resetting Windows 11 is similar to a clean installation, where you get a fresh version of Windows 11 reinstalled. The only difference is that your user profile stays in place if you save your files. If you choose to delete everything, Windows 11 will be reset as if you had just pulled it out of the box. Remember that there are only two (2) options when it comes to Reset this PC:

• You can keep your files and delete all the apps. This option reinstalls Windows 11 and retains your user profile.
• You can delete all of your files and all of the apps. This option reinstalls Windows 11 and returns your computer to an out-of-the-box state.

One of the best features of resetting Windows 11 and removing all files and apps is that you can have Windows securely erase all of the data and apps before reinstalling Windows. It works great if you are getting rid of your Windows 11 computer.

Now the first thing I recommend before resetting Windows 11 is that you have a complete (bare metal) backup of your computer to be safe. Of course, if you are not going to keep your computer, you do not need a backup.

How to backup your Windows 11 computer using Windows Backup and File History

The second thing to do is find out if your drive(s) are encrypted with BitLocker drive encryption. To find out if your drive(s) are BitLocker encrypted:

1. Press the Windows logo key + S to bring up Search.
2. Type in bitlocker and left-click on Manage BitLocker / Control Panel under Best match.

If your drive is encrypted with BitLocker, you have two (2) choices; You can turn off Bitlocker, which will decrypt your drive and take some time to perform, or locate and document (write or print it out) the BitLocker recovery key.

Where to look for your BitLocker recovery key

Now, if you are getting rid of your computer, you should turn off BitLocker before resetting Windows 11. The reason is that the BitLocker recovery key is typically tied to your Microsoft account.

When all is said and done, and your computer is gone, you will want to remove that device from your Microsoft account. When you remove that device, if the drive(s) in that computer are still encrypted with BitLocker, the BitLocker recovery key will also be removed.

Once you have BitLocker taken care of, it is time to start the reset. Now there are two (2) ways of going about resetting Windows 11, when logged into Windows 11 and using the System app, or when logged out and using the Advanced Boot Options.

How to get to Reset this PC when logged in to Windows 11

1. Left-click on the Start button to bring up the Start menu.
2. In the upper right-hand corner of the Start menu, left-click on All apps.
3. Scroll down the list of programs and left-click on Settings.
4. Left-click on the System category in the left-hand column.
5. Scroll down the right-hand column and left-click on Recovery.
6. Under Reset this PC, left-click on Reset PC.

How to get to Reset this PC when logged out of Windows 11

1. At the login screen, left-click on the Power icon in the lower right-hand corner. This will bring up the power options.
2. Hold down the shift key while you left-click on Restart.
3. When the Advanced Boot Options appears, left-click on Troubleshoot.
4. On the Troubleshoot screen, left-click on Reset this PC

How to use Reset this PC

1. Reset this PC opens to the Choose an option screen. The two (2) options are: Keep my files or Remove everything. Whichever you choose, you will have the ability to change the advanced settings for each.
2. The How would you like to reinstall Windows? screen appears next. You can choose to download a new copy of Windows 11 (Cloud download) or use the local copy (Local reinstall).
3. Next, the Additional settings screen appears.
   • If you choose Keep my files, you will see how Windows 11 will be reinstalled. When you click on Change settings, you can change whether to download Windows or reinstall from your device.
   • If you choose Remove everything, you will see how Windows 11 will be reinstalled. When you click Change settings, you can change whether to quick or secure erase data, delete files from all drives or only the Windows drive, and whether to download Windows or reinstall from your device.
4. The Ready to reset this PC screen appears with a list of all the changes that will take place. This is your last chance to cancel the reset. When you are ready, click Reset, and the reset process begins. Depending on the options you choose, the reset can take a few minutes to a few hours, and your computer will automatically restart.

Are you getting random errors while using Windows 11? Do you think your computer has gotten compromised? A clean installation of Windows 11 may be just the ticket. Here is how to perform a clean installation of Windows 11.

When it comes to repairing Windows 11, trying to fix Windows may take more time than it is worth. At this point, you might want to look at performing a clean installation of Windows 11.

As a computer technician, I constantly have to weigh whether my time is better spent trying to fix Windows or using that time to perform a clean installation. It is usually six of one and a half-dozen of another.

Now I have had customers that had to get their current installation of Windows to work. It usually is because they have programs that they cannot reinstall because they do not have the original installation media anymore.

But if you have all of the installation media or links to download it and are okay with reinstalling all of your apps, then performing a clean installation of Windows 11 may be just right. Now there are a few things that have to be done before proceeding with a clean install.

1. Backup up all of your data. If you store your files on your local drive, use a good backup program, like the built-in Windows Backup. If you keep your data on the cloud, verify that you can access it from a browser.

How to backup your Windows 11 computer using Windows Backup and File History

On an external drive, you can also make a copy of your special folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos). The benefit is that you can access your files from any Windows-based computer. Once your data is backed up, you will need to get the installation media.

2. Download the Windows 11 installation media. To perform a clean Windows 11 installation, you will need the Windows 11 installation media. If you installed Windows 11 from a USB drive, it is a good bet that it may be a different version of Windows 11.

Or if your computer came preloaded with Windows 11, you will need to download the install media. Microsoft has a tool aptly named the Media Creation Tool that will create the installation media for Windows 11. All you need is a blank USB drive that is 8GB or larger. If you have an optical drive in your computer, you can also create an ISO image and burn it to a blank DVD.

Create Windows 11 Installation Media

What you can do with an ISO file

3. Make sure you have your Microsoft Account information. When the installation is complete, and Windows 11 starts up for the first time, you will need your Microsoft account username and password to complete the setup.

If you need help remembering your Microsoft account password (and it happens), this is the time to reset it. Follow the link below to go over to the Microsoft account webpage, enter your username, and when prompted for a password, select Forgot password?.

4. Inventory the software that is installed. To ensure that you can reinstall all the software currently installed on your computer, you should take a software inventory of your computer. Belarc Advisor is an excellent program for collecting the hardware and software inside of your computer, and it is free for personal use. Make sure you print out or save a copy of the report so you can use it after the reinstallation.

Belarc Advisor

5. Make a note of what edition of Windows 11 you have installed on your computer. When the time comes to reinstall Windows 11, you will be prompted for what edition (Home, Education, Pro, etc.) you want to install. If you select and install the wrong edition, Windows 11 not activate, and you will have to go through the installation process again.

To find out what edition of Windows you have, bring up a Run dialog box by pressing the Windows logo key + R. In the Run dialog box, type winver and select OK. Follow the link below for more ways to bring up the Run dialog box.

How to get to and use the Run dialog box in Windows

6. Prepare to wipe your drive. There are several ways to erase the contents of your computer's drive, and I will cover three (3) of them. Note: If you have more than one (1) drive in your computer, you must ensure you are erasing the correct drive. Turn your computer off and disconnect the power or remove any drive you do not want to get accidentally wiped clean.

I like performing a DoD (Department of Defense) wipe when clearing drives. The Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) has a few disk-wiping programs included. I like using Darik's Boot and Nuke inside of the UBCD.

Now the UBCD has some significant hurdles to overcome to use it, like changing the BIOS settings to allow your computer to boot from it. But if you want to ensure that your drive is completely clean before reinstalling Windows 11, this is the way to go.

Diagnose computer hardware issues with the Ultimate Boot CD

The second and third option for wiping your drive is using the built-in utility Diskpart or the actual Windows 11 installer. The following two (2) ways of drive wiping require you to boot your computer up on the installation media. You can do this using the Advanced Boot Options. Make sure you have the Windows 11 installation media connected to your computer before proceeding so that it will appear as a bootable device listed in the Advanced Boot Options.

How to get to and use the Advanced Boot Options inside of Windows 11

Once you get to the Advanced Boot Options, select Use a device and choose the media you created earlier. Your computer will restart and boot from the installation media. The first screen that appears in the Windows Setup dialog box. Ensure the language, time, and keyboard method are correct, and click on Next. The Install now screen will appear.

To use Diskpart: Select the Repair your computer link in the lower-left-hand corner and then Choose an option screen will appear. Select Troubleshoot, then Command Prompt and then type diskpart in the command prompt and then press Enter.

First, list the disk(s) currently attached to your computer by typing list disk and pressing Enter. From the list that appears, the disk with Windows should be disk 0. Type select disk 0 and press Enter.

To verify that this drive is the one with Windows installed on it, we need to list the partitions on the disk by typing list partition and then press Enter. From the list that appears, you should see at least three (3) partitions (system, primary, and recovery).

If disk 0 has these partitions listed, then this is the drive you need to wipe. If not, check any other drive listed using the list disk, select disk, and list partition commands.

Once you select the correct disk, type clean and press Enter. All partitions will be erased, and you will be ready to proceed with the reinstallation of Windows 11. Type exit and manually restart your computer to continue the installation.

To use the Windows Installer: During the installation process, you will be prompted to select the drive you want to install Windows 11 on. Usually, you would have only one (1) drive (Drive 0 Unallocated Space) that appears. But since you are performing a clean install, you will see all of the partitions that are on that drive (Drive 0).

Starting at the top, select each partition and then select Delete.

You will be warned about deleting all of the data on that partition. Click on OK and continue deleting all of the rest of the partitions until you end up with Drive 0 Unallocated Space. Select that drive and continue with the installation.

7. Install Windows 11. Boot your computer from the installation media, and at the Install now dialog box, select Install now. The Activate Windows dialog box will appear, prompting you for your Windows 11 product key. Since you previously activated Windows 11 on this computer, select I don't have a product key link at the bottom and select Next.

Since Windows 11 has been activated before on this computer, the first time you connect to the Internet after the installation completes, Windows will automatically activate. It is called Digital Entitlement.

On the next screen, you will be prompted to select the edition of Windows 11 you want to install. Highlight the edition and select Next. The next screen will be the EULA (End User License Agreement). Just check the acceptance box and select Next to continue.

The next screen will ask you what type of installation you want to perform. Select Custom: Install Windows only (advanced). The next screen will ask you where you want to install Windows 11. Select Drive 0 Unallocated Space and then click on Next.

At this point, Windows will start the installation. Once all of the files are copied over and the installation finishes, your computer will restart. From here, you will go through the steps to set up your clean installation of Windows 11. Remember to check the computer manufacturer's website for any system-specific drivers, and you should be good to go.

Are you having some problems with your computer and wish you could reinstall Windows 11 without losing your files and apps? Maybe you want to upgrade to the latest version of Windows 11, and Windows Update is not offering it. Here is how to perform a repair upgrade installation of Windows 11.

There is one thing every Windows user fears, and that is reinstalling Windows. The fear of losing your files and installed programs will deter most people until the problem becomes too bad to ignore.

But with Windows 11, you can do a repair upgrade reasonably easily. So what is a repair upgrade? It is reinstalling Windows 11 using the same version (repair) or a newer version (repair/upgrade). It is often called an in-place repair or upgrade.

Now I have repaired several Windows computers using this method, which works most of the time. I remember one laptop with issues with being unable to right-click using the touchpad or mouse, and an in-place repair installation fixed the problem.

We first need to download the latest version of Windows 11 from Microsoft (see the link below). We will be downloading an ISO file that we will use to reinstall Windows 11. An ISO file is the format for optical disks (CD, DVD, BD).

Download Windows 11

When you reach the Windows 11 download page, scroll down until you find Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO). You can also create an ISO file using the Create Windows 11 Installation Media, which involves a few more steps.

Once you have the ISO file downloaded, you will need to make it a virtual DVD drive. Locate the ISO file in File Explorer and right-click on it.

From the context menu that appears, select Mount. If you receive a security warning, left-click on Open. It will now appear as a DVD drive inside File Explorer.

Click on the DVD drive to display the contents. In the list of files and folders, you will find a program named Setup.

To ensure we are running the install with the correct privileges, right-click on Setup and select Run as administrator from the context menu that appears. This will start the repair upgrade installation.

The first window that appears is the Windows 11 Setup screen. Usually, you would click on the Next button and proceed with the installation.

But if you are performing a repair installation, you may want to change whether or not to download updates, drivers, and features at this time by clicking on the Change how Setup downloads updates link.

I have found that delaying downloads until after the installation is complete works best for repairing Windows.

Next, you will get the EULA (End User License Agreement), click on Accept and continue. On the next screen, you can change if you keep your files and apps or remove them.

By default, both files and apps are saved. When you are ready to start the installation, click on Install.

Once the repair upgrade starts, it can take some time to finish.

Grab something to drink and find something to do. Your computer will restart several times during the installation.

Have you ever wanted a program on your computer to run automatically at a specific time? Maybe you want to defrag a drive or clean up your computer in the background? If so, here is how to use Task Scheduler inside Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Task Scheduler has to be one of the most utilized of all of the programs inside Windows. It is one of those apps you never really think about because it works in the background and runs everything from syncing the time to running Windows Update.

And if you have your anti-virus software perform scheduled scans, it is more than likely to use Task Scheduler. There are so many things that Task Scheduler can do that are kind of mind-blowing.

I have been known to write script files containing multiple actions to have Task Scheduler run them. A simple script file can empty a network folder of temporary scanned files on a regular schedule.

But you do not have to know how to write code to use Task Scheduler. You only need to know what program you want to run, where it is located, and when and how often you want to run it. This is where we get into Triggers and Actions.

Simply put, their names, Triggers and Actions, are pretty self-explanatory. Triggers are the conditions that have to happen to start the Action, and the Action is what program or script is executed. With all this said, let's look at Task Scheduler.

How to open Task Scheduler in Windows 11

1. Left-click on the Start button to bring up the Start menu.
2. In the upper right-hand corner of the Start menu, left-click on All apps.
3. Scroll down the list of programs and left-click on Windows Tools.
4. Left-click on Task Scheduler.

How to open Task Scheduler in Windows 10

1. Left-click on the Start button to bring up the Start menu.
2. Scroll down the list of programs to Windows Administrative Tools and left-click to expand.
3. Left-click on Task Scheduler.

Once Task Scheduler has opened, you will see three columns; Console Tree (left), Task Scheduler summary (center), and the Action Pane (right).

Left-click on the Task Scheduler Library in the Console Tree to display all of the tasks that have been scheduled.

In the task summary in the center column, you will find a list of general tasks.

This is where any custom tasks should be created. I recommend using the Create Basic Task... shortcut over the Create Task shortcut in the Action Menu. It is a straightforward interface and if you need to, you can modify the properties later.

For this demonstration, I am going to use the built-in Disk Cleanup program. Using the steps outlined in the following articles, I created a command-line configuration, and I am going to use that to create a task.

Clean up Windows 11 with Storage Sense and Disk Cleanup

Clean up Windows 10 with Disk Cleanup

How to create a basic task in Task Scheduler

The following instructions will create a task for the built-in Disk Cleanup program. A previous setup using an Admin Command Prompt was required to set the parameters for cleanmgr.exe (see articles above).

1. Left-click on the Create Basic Task... link in the Action Menu.
   
   The Create Basic Task Wizard appears.
2. Give the new task a Name and Description, and then Left-click on Next.
3. Select when you want the task to start (trigger) and then left-click on Next.
   
   If you select Daily, Weekly, Monthly, One time, or When a specific event is logged, you will be prompted for more specific parameters.
4. You now have to select what task you want to perform.
   
   Usually, you would select Start a program and then left-click on Next.
5. On the right side of the Program/script field, left-click the Browse button,
   
   navigate to C:\Windows\System32\, and select cleanmgr.exe.
6. In the Add arguments section, type /sagerun:n and select Next.
7. Then select Finish, and you're all set.

Mobile hotspots are becoming more and more popular, with being able to share Internet access with a few devices. But did you know you can use your Windows 11 computer as a mobile hotspot? Here is how to set up a mobile hotspot in Windows 11.

The rise in the popularity of wifi hotspots is due to mobile devices and is usually associated with them. So most people are surprised that they learn they can create one inside of Windows 11. But how could you use it?

I like to set up a wifi hotspot on my laptop when I go on vacation. Hotels will usually have an ethernet port in the room, so I connect my laptop to it and share the Internet connection with up to eight (8) devices through the wireless network adapter in my laptop.

The only hardware requirement is your computer has to have two (2) network adapters, and at least one (1)of them needs to be a wireless network or Bluetooth adapter. And if your computer has only one network adapter, you can use USB wired and wireless adapters too.

Now the mobile hotspot does have a couple of drawbacks. You can only have eight (8) devices connected at a time, and you cannot share files or printers; the only thing you can share is your Internet connection.

How to set up a mobile hotspot in Windows 11

1. Bring up the Settings app by:
• Left-clicking on the Start button to bring up the Start menu.
• In the list of pinned apps on the Start menu, left-click on Settings.
or
• Right-click on the Start button to bring up the Power User menu.
• In the list of programs that appear, left-click on Settings.
or
• Press the Windows logo key + I
2. Scroll down the left-hand column and left-click on Network & internet.
   
3. In the right-hand column, left-click on Mobile hotspot.
4. First, select the connection you want to share from the Share my internet connection from the pull-down menu.
   
5. Second, check the Network properties to see if they are acceptable. If you want to change the hotspot's name or password, left-click on the Edit button.
6. Third, click the Mobile hotspot Off/On switch to turn it on. When you enable the hotspot, you may get an additional switch for Power saving.