win10 startfresh tool?

Hardware and technical stuff
1

Anyone have any experience using this Microsoft Windows10 startfresh tool? The tool claims, and I quote:
“will perform a clean installation of Windows. All apps that came with or were manually installed on your PC will be removed, including paid apps. Apps that come standard with Windows 10 (Mail and Edge for example) will be preserved. Additionally, some of your customized settings including your manufacturer’s default customization (Power and Sleep settings for example) will be changed to Windows default settings, which may impact your hardware performance.”

I ask because I am trying to purchase a low-end laptop for a relative on a low budget and everything I’ve read, from Amazon reviews to article reviews, claim the laptops I’ve been looking at come pre-installed with bloat/crap/shovel ware.

Is there any way to purchase a laptop in the ~$500 range that doesn’t come with pre-installed ShitzWare?

This laptop from Amazon seems to be in the purchasers price range but it definitely comes with shovelware. I was hoping to get this laptop and use this MS startfresh tool to blow away all of the crapware.

Anyone have experience with this tool, or the low-end laptop I linked above? Or, a low-end laptop suggestion that doesn’t come with shovelware? Thanks.

2

Also, it seems many low-end laptops comes with Windows 10 S-Mode, which is actually desirable for the buyer so they won’t get themselves into trouble installing something foul.

I can’t tell if this Win10 StartFresh tool works for a Win10 S-mode install? The MS page states, “Use this tool to install a clean copy of the latest version of Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro”.

3

Isn’t it what M$ put under the “factory reset” button?

4

What is this magically “factory reset” button you speak of?

5

Create a Windows 10 bootable USB drive (you can do this for free).
Then perform a clean install of Windows.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/15088/windows-10-create-installation-media

6

I just did this on my desktop. No tool required. It’s all built-into Windows. I am running 2004. I reset my PC, but it kept my personal files. But it downloaded a fresh copy of Windows 10 and it was a fresh new install of the OS.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12415/windows-10-recovery-options

7

This might be a dumb question but…did you have to redownload your Steam games to get them to work correctly?

I’ve got like eight years of digital detritus on my system but most of my hard drive is taken up by Steam games.

8

Part of the reset will be to remove all installed programs. If your Steam library is on your OS drive, it will be deleted. I’m not sure what happens if you have it on a separate drive, though.

9

I always keep my steam library on its own drive and it’s super easy to recover. I’ve recently reinstalled Windows twice (the second time because I ran a stupid command recovering some old files and borked and it was so fresh it was just easier to start over again). It’s as easy as configuring a library on the other drive in Steam settings. Once you point to the existing folder it’ll pick up all your old installs and you’ll be running smoothly after that. The only thing I can’t remember now is whether or not it will go ahead with those “first time run” install scripts that it runs when you run the game again. I might have had to install directx or something one time because I’m pretty sure it didn’t run it for me. But if you just install a few more games from scratch to wherever and run them then it will kick off those games first run scripts and you’ll probably have all your needed directxs and msftvc dlls and whatnot ready to go, they don’t really each need their own install, Steam just re-runs everything just in case.

10

Shovelware is how OEMs keep down the retail prices on systems. That said, it’s all easily enough uninstalled after initial setup. I basically let Cortana do her thing (set region, permissions, etc), then, while the OS is installing all the needed updates, I just uninstall the games, utilities, etc. I don’t want.

You should know, even a native copy of Windows 10 will have some crap you’ll have to uninstall, like Candy Crush and the Office nag.

The Aspire 5 is a fine machine. I think this model is a little underpowered (only 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD), but if the user is only doing light work, it should be more than adequate. Source: am Acer sales rep.

12

I backed everything up and formatted the drive and it feels nice to have a clean system. All that detritus accumulates, you don’t need all that shit anymore. :)

14

I’ve found Driver Booster Pro to be actually quite decent at maximising my laziness in terms of keeping drivers up to date. There is a free version but I don’t know how limited it is in comparison.

That aside, by far the quickest/easiest way to reinstall Windows 10 is to use the ‘Reset this PC’ functionality built in to it. This includes options to keep your various apps/files etc as well as just wiping everything. I’ve only ever used the latter. I assume this would get rid of the (non-MS) shovelware but don’t know for certain.

Easiest way to access this is to go Start Menu -> Power -> Click ‘Restart’ while holding down shift. This should put you into ‘Advanced Startup Options’. Click ‘Troubleshoot’ and the reset option should be in there. I think it’ll download the windows files automatically if it needs to (note: this also provides a handy way to get into your UEFI BIOS without spamming del/F2 at boot).

No idea if the reset is available with Windows S, though. Also, back up your shit before doing anything with this reset stuff!