Wiping a PC of previous owner info

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Guest

I've purchased a PC on Ebay and want to remove all instances of the previous
owner's name and replace it with my own. I don't want to wipe the hard
drive. What's the best way to go about this?
 
You have to wipe the hard drive. You don't know what malware is on the
computer or how improperly it's been setup. The first step when you
acquire a used computer is to wipe the hard drive.
 
I've purchased a PC on Ebay and want to remove all instances of the previous
owner's name and replace it with my own. I don't want to wipe the hard
drive. What's the best way to go about this?
Click to expand...


If I bought a used computer, the first thing I would do with it would
be to reinstall the operating system cleanly. You have no idea how the
computer has been maintained, what has been installed incorrectly,
what is missing, what viruses and spyware there may be, etc. I
wouldn't want to live with somebody else's mistakes and problems,
possibility of kiddie porn, etc., and I wouldn't recommend that anyone
else do either.
 
Unfortunately, I removed everything without wiping the hard drive and now
I've had the PC for several months and all my programs are here and its
become a hassle to have his name on it. Isn't there a way to replace his
name with mine? Thank you for the advice, but I'm not arguing for not
wiping. I don't want to wipe it at this point. I've had this PC for a year.
 
Pammijo said:
Unfortunately, I removed everything without wiping the hard
drive and now
I've had the PC for several months and all my programs are here
and its
become a hassle to have his name on it. Isn't there a way to
replace his
name with mine? Thank you for the advice, but I'm not arguing
for not
wiping. I don't want to wipe it at this point. I've had this
PC for a year.
Click to expand...

You might try the Change Owner and Organization utility by Doug
Knox
http://www.dougknox.com/

Follow the Win XP Utilities link and then look for the utility in
the list.

HTH

Chet
 
Awesome! Just what the doctor ordered! Thank you so much! I KNEW there had
to be a way!
 
Hey Pammijo,
If you want a proper deletion, go to Start->Settings->Control Panel->User
Accounts->Users and delte unused accounts. If you have lots, an easy tool to
use is delprof.exe from Microsoft.com. It is a Server 2003 tool to delete
lots of profiles in one command line.

Cheers
Cruise Yong
 
Ok. This was an interesting response. Though I wasn't referring to the User
Accounts - of course that was the first thing I deleted was his user account,
duh! But the tool was useful to explore. Thank you for this.
 
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