New Laptop

[thelewisgang]

I'm going to buy a new laptop shortly & giving my present Notebook to a friend who has never had a computer. I obviously want to clear everything on it before I give it to her & just wondered if taking it back to factory settings would do this or do I need a separate programme to run through. Thanks for your help. Pat

[Tuvok]

Factory settings should do it. With recovery software it would be possible to recover your files - but I would say the risk of your friend doing so is zero.

You might be kind and appy all the updates before you hand it over.

[thelewisgang]

Thanks. Yes, I will do that for her. It's unlikely she will actually use it...having never had/used a computer but I'm trying to get her interested.

[HansUrbancka]

Having taken the Notebook back to Factory settings it will be necessary to re-install all the up-dates: as suggested by Tuvok. A task which you have indicated you will perform before handing over the Notebook to your friend.

Be prepared for a number of hours to be involved with the up-dating procedure. There could be a few hundred up-dates involved from the time you first had the Notebook. However, you will Not have to sit watching over the machine whilst it's up-dating.

Incidentally, having done the Factory Re-set you may find that Internet Explorer will have to be manually up-dated as a separate task to all the other up-dates.

If you require further information in this thread, it will help respondents to know the make and model number of the Notebook and the actual operating system.

Hans.

[Buenchico]

All you need to do is to 'shred' (rather than simply 'delete' ) your documents, etc, using this:
http://www.fileshredder.org/

You should also delete your browser's cookies and stored passwords (and possibly your bookmarks as well).

If you used a mail client on your netbook (rather than just webmail), delete all of your emails and the actual account(s) as well.

Uninstall any software which accesses subscription-based services.

That's far simpler than returning the netbook to its factory settings.

[fiesata]

Create a new user profile (User account) then delete your sensitive or private files using a shredder software as advised by Buenchico then delete your user profile leaving the new clean profile for the next owner