who requires my kids to help when I can't figure out what I'm doing! I am very proud to work the apps on my phone now, although my daughter is responsible for getting me into those and showing me how they work. It is all Greek to me ...

And I had to lol when you said you bought the laptop last year - I sat on a new iPad for months until my husband finally said, "if you're not going to use that thing, I'm giving it a try" and now he carries it around wherever he goes. I think he figured out how to access the tennis channel on it. Mostly we still use our PC's.

it is a 10 and I hate it, hardly ever open it. desktop or phone for me. I am a little better at this stuff than him, but not much. I def have more patience to figure things out but this crap this morning! OMG if we were closer to town I might have gone back to walmart and chucked it across the store!

I think that will help

To factory reset a Windows 11 PC without logging in, access the sign-in screen, hold the Shift key, and click Power > Restart. In the blue Recovery menu that appears, navigate to Troubleshoot > Reset this PC > Remove everything. Follow the prompts to complete the reset.

probably Home? but will try that

you don't have to create a Microsoft account for setup. With home, you will be able to create a local account after your initial set up, then remove the Microsoft account sign-in. They don't make it easy in either case, but it is easier in Pro even though it isn't the default option in the initial set up.

But make sure you write down your login credentials. And if you have to use an MS account for set up. See if you can create it and log into that first via a different device on line. But don't tie that other device to your account.

Also make sure you have a recovery email available, you can use your own that you used for your DU setup.

problem started today with screen announcing password or pin lost or invalid or something (already can't remember now) before anything was even done other than opening the lid!

I read about avoiding the microsoft account before trying to set it up the other day, but it seemed too complicated for us to deal with. they should just stop all this shit if the user's birthdate is before 1990!

Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2026, 03:56 PM - Edit history (1)

A lot of good How To on YouTube. I'm glad that so many are so generous with taking the time to create clear, concise demonstration videos on so many topics.

Last edited Thu Jul 2, 2026, 02:25 PM - Edit history (1)

after hitting reset and remove everything it takes me to a page that is demanding a recovery key.
that requires getting into the same bullshit we can't solve already, can't get to stupid microsoft account because the stupid email we used is old and I can't get into it. arrrggghhh!!!!

neither of the videos in this thread show the page I am getting that starts with "Reset this PC enter the recovery key to get going again...." blah blah.

OMG an old guy just wants to watch you tube. this is not a national security matter.

edit - finally got the key and now it is resetting

I am still in shock at the insane levels of security involved in all of this. holy shit. at one point it said it would take 30 days to redo our security shit...