Windows 10: Activation says linked to your Microsoft account, how do you sell it?

I think I have not made it clear enough. I was talking about how to wipe drive BUT no carrying on to install windows at all.

I also advocated using "clean all" which completely wipes data.

Actually there is a difference between the diskpart command (using clean all) and deleting partitions if you do reinstall windows. With latter, tools like recuva could still retrieve data. With the diskpart 'clean all', data is nuked completely. As OP is selling PC, it is up to him to judge whether to take risk with quicker method or not.

Personally, I would take longer approach if selling pc for peace of mind.

 

No it doesn't change the end result, assuming they install Windows 10. That's not a given, especially if the drive is blank. Preinstall it and leave it at the OOBE and odds are they will at least do that.

IMHO what your suggesting and what cereberus suggested are not the same thing.

 

@cereberus I like your plan, wipe the drive. If I was passing my PC on to friend or family what I'd likely do is install the edition it got with via free upgrade, in my case 10 Pro. If It was going to parts unknown, I'd wipe it clean like your advising.

 

We also have to remember that there are commercial differences to be considered -

A majority of users contributing to this thread have the ability to "Recycle" the licence, (Retail from MSDN Etc), on a future project.

The vast majority of those selling a used system cannot legitimately re-use the OS as it is an OEM that came with the hardware.

In these cases it's makes more sense to sell the complete "package" of Hardware and OOBE prepared OS. There is also a considerable financial gain potential, as the mass market are used to buying a Plug and Play computing experience and are used to paying extra for the privilege, the add on price of the OS can easily return at least the cost of the OEM install media and key that they would need to purchase ( assuming that they are intending to run windows). In this situation I would not offer an option of with or without OS as there would be less profit margin to the seller

 

It may also result in one less pirated system out there. *Wink

Some people just won't pay for anything. Give them an already legal activated 10 Home, and maybe they won't cheat their way to get 10 Pro.

 

Fair points, but if you want to leave Windows on pc and also go through oobe experience, then all you have to do is use 'reset my pc', keeping nothing, selecting option to wipe pc for selling which takes longer as it overwrites everything.

I know we have digressed a bit but securely wiping drive before selling it is worth considering.

 

Depending on hardware, that can take a few hours. Clean installing until OOBE, wiping the hard disk takes 10 to 15 minutes. Quite a difference.

That's a simple reason why I consider Windows reset being an utterly useless feature. Two methods, same result, huge difference in time required.

 

I agree. I can't see myself ever using the built in reset feature.

 

Well I totally disagree with you. Your method does not securely wipe data from drive for resale. So what if it takes 4 hours - just let it run overnight. Time is irrelevant - data security is not!