How to do a Windows 11 factory reset?
If you are having many performance issues on your device after upgrading to Windows 11 such as suddenly missing files, errors while installing updates, weird error messages appearing, or your computer is working slowly you can do a Windows 10 factory reset as we explained earlier. . But if the rollback option is not available, it is probably time to reset it to factory settings (Factory Reset), Doing a Windows 11 Factory Reset is an option included in Windows 11 which is the “Nuclear solution” for many Windows problems that you experience when using your computer as it restores settings The system defaults appear as if you had reinstalled the copy again. Let’s see how to access it and easily restore your Windows 11 computer to factory settings.
Keep in mind before doing anything that when resetting Windows 11 to factory defaults you will have two options: save or erase personal data / files. That is, depending on your needs and your choice, you can backup or delete your personal files.
Either way, it is recommended that you back up your important data, so if something goes wrong, you can install Windows 11 manually by mounting the copy as an ISO file and restore your data. Knowing that in both cases you choose to either keep personal data or delete it, the installed programs will not be kept. Before you start using the factory reset feature, you need to create a list of installed programs and reinstall them manually. We explained it to you in a previous section: Look at the files that will remain and that will be deleted after doing a reset.
Windows 11 factory reset without losing files
You can go directly to the Settings app through the start menu or press Windows + I button, then click on System in the side menu, and from the right side go to the recovery page, then click on the button “Reset PC” next to the Reset this PC option. A pop-up window will appear in front of you with two options to choose from, Keep my files and Delete all, but the first option is to select, with the choice Keep my files your personal files (except for installed programs) are kept and it is enough to return to the basic parameters of the system.
Then Windows 11 will ask you which method you want to use to reinstall Windows, you can choose “Cloud Download” to download the latest version of Windows 11 directly from Microsoft’s servers and then install it automatically. Keep in mind that this option may slow down the restore process, as downloading the copy file larger than 4GB in size will take some time depending on your internet connection speed.
The second option “Local reinstallation” is the option to select if you are not prepared to lose 4 GB of your limited Internet plan or if your device is not connected to the Internet at all. However, this option is not recommended if the goal of factory reset is really to fix bugs and issues caused by malware infiltrating the system.
At the end, the window will show the options you selected, if you want to change anything, click on Change settings, and to start the restore process, click on the Next button.
That’s it, all you need to do is sit back and be patient until the process of resetting your computer is complete. The process will take some time and if you are using a laptop, be sure to connect it to the charger to avoid damage or data loss due to sudden shutdown. Your computer may restart multiple times, so follow the onscreen instructions to set up Windows 11 as a new system.
Perform a Windows 11 factory reset and delete all files
For some reason, if you want to do a factory reset of the computer in Windows 11 and remove everything, for example, you want to sell the computer, then in this scenario we will do all the previous steps but instead of choose Keep my files you will choose Delete all as this option allows you to erase everything on your Windows 11 computer and start from scratch where all files and applications will be deleted which is the default option when resetting the computer (factory settings) and the fastest way to secure delete your personal files.
So, after selecting Remove All, you will again have two options: Cloud Upload or Local Reinstall, so select the appropriate one according to your needs. After that, when the Review selected options page appears, click on “Change settings” and then make sure that the Clean data option is enabled so that Windows will delete all files on the hard drive, whether they are stored in C partition or other partitions, this option will also encrypt files before deleting them to prevent their recovery. It is therefore necessary if you want to sell your computer to someone else. After activating it, click on Confirm then on Next and wait for the process to finish and you will get a clean copy of Windows.