Help me get my new computer up and running, if you please

I got a good deal from a guy on a fairly new Dell XPS 13 laptop computer, running Windows 10. Everything’s great, except I haven’t bought a new computer in a while, and I’m experiencing problems no doubt stemming from the fact that it’s a used computer.

  1. I can’t get his name out of the Users folder. And when I place something on the desktop as a test and then delete it, I check the Recycle Bin and the original location is C:\Users[his name]\Desktop. How can I completely wipe his name off the computer?

  2. I spent an hour inputting my passwords, Firefox preferences, etc., only to lose them all when I had to restart for a Windows update. Are they still there, saved under a different user? I can’t find a way to switch users anywhere.

  3. I can’t seem to get it to not require a password from me, no matter how many times I uncheck the box or tell it to go fuck itself.

  4. The hard drive is showing 75.2 GB of space is being used up. That can’t be right, can it? There’s nothing on it except the OS, Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. But I’ve looked through all the “apps”, as they call them, and nothing adds up to even close to that.

Please, help me enjoy this thing before I chuck it out the window. But it’s so light and pretty it would probably just fly away, and the joke would be on me…

I don’t know how much trouble you want to take with this, but it should be possible to restore the laptop to “factory default” and so remove any trace of the previous owner. This will also however, remove all software like the Photoshop, Illustrator and Firefox. I’ve only done a system restore once on a Windows 10 machine, a Lenovo desktop that someone had set and then forgotten the “administrator” password on, it was pretty straightforward.

Here’s a link from Dell with instructions for various type of reset.

Edited to add, the password is going to be more of a problem, I don’t know that Windows 10 allows accounts without them anymore.

Install Windows or Linux from scratch. Then the only things on the computer will be stuff you yourself installed.

Perzactly !!! :eek:

It does. I don’t remember exactly how to do it, I think you just leave the password field blank when setting up the account. It’s not structured to let you think this is possible, though.

Firefox you can get back in two minutes, after your factory reset has finished. Not the case with Photoshop or Illustrator.

There may be a less drastic solution. Open Computer Management then click on the chevron beside Local Users & Groups to open up the submenu, then click on Users. Look at the users listed. In the right-hand panel, click on More Actions and then Add User. Add yourself as an administrator level user and set the password to never expire. Now log off and log back on as yourself. The old owner’s account will still be there and will have to remain there (and you should save the password) but you can otherwise forget about it.

If it’s Windows 10 Home, you will not have that option.
Go to Start > Settings > Accounts > Other People > Add someone else to this PC

In the wizard, click "I don’t have this person’s sign-in information
, then “Add a user without a Microsoft account”.

After the new user is created, click on their name and then “Change account type”. Make the new user and administrator.

Trust Microsoft to make it difficult!

Another big vote for wipe and reinstall. Just get the OS serial number and save it. (You want to do this anyway.) Download an install image from MS. Image burn to a thumb drive.

I would hate to think what sort of crapware might be lurking on this. One reason people get rid of computers is because they are running slow. Computers don’t get slower. They get loaded with stuff you don’t want or shouldn’t want. Even if you uninstalled a bunch of stuff, there could be who-knows-what lurking around.

To wipe I suggest getting the disk utility from the drive maker and run its wipe/test scanner.

Thanks for the input, guys. Yeah, I went ahead and wiped it clean, which took care of most of the problems. It’s a guy I trust, and he was just selling it to get a computer that could handle his architecture programs, but I do wish he had wiped it clean in the first place.

On the other hand, I really want(ed) the Photoshop and Illustrator programs on there, so I’ll have to look at other options.

In other news, everything about this computer is better than my old one, except for the amount of space on the hard drive. It’s only 128GB, so even after clearing everything off there’s not enough room for my music, pictures, videos, etc. Is everybody using the Cloud these days?? It looks like 200GB is only $3 a month; anything I should know before I go that route?

I’ll bet that hard drive is actually an SSD, which are still expensive, and that’s why it’s so small. One option is to get and use an external drive. For a hundred bucks or so, you could get one that holds up to four terabytes. Or you could swap out the existing drive for one that’s 512GB or so, but that’s probably going to cost $200 or so.

Gimp and Inkscape are the best free alternatives for Photoshop and Illustrator. The major drawback is that the interfaces aren’t the Adobe standard. I was able to figure out the basic functions of Illustrator the first time I used it because I was used to Photoshop. Same with Microsoft Office, the interface is the same across almost all programs.

Cloud storage is fine as a secondary backup, but I wouldn’t use it as my primary because uploading data is slow (typically 1/10 to 1/20 of your download speed). As suggested, get an external USB 3.0 drive (or better two so you can keep a second set offsite) for your backups. Also be sure to backup your Windows install so you can recover it quickly if needed.

Is it not possible to write down the serial numbers of Photoshop and Illustrator, like the one from MS Windows, and use them to re-install? If you already wiped the disk, though, too late.

The free replacements are GIMP and Inkscape. The user interface is different, though, and plug-ins for Adobe may not be compatible, though you may be able to find free plug-ins that do what you want.

You could use something like Magical Jellybean to retrieve serial numbers, but I didn’t mention because of legality of using software you didn’t buy yourself and the possibility of causing the original owner’s license being revoked if two instances of the license (unlikely but possible, especially if the programs are Cloud based) are in use at the same time.

Actually, I think you and DPRK might have solved my problem, because all I really needed was a way to convert bitmaps, jpegs, etc. to vector art, and Inkscape does that and it’s free. I had never heard of it, so thanks!

Regarding the small hard drive, I guess I’ll put my iTunes library, pictures, videos, etc, on an external hard drive? I’m not sure about that whole Cloud thing; wouldn’t I have to have an internet connection to access any of it?

Yes, and get 2, one to use, and one as a backup