Resetting Dell Pc

Briefly a factory reset would take you back to Windows 10. The media creation tool will create a bootable Windows 11 flash drive. With it you can clean install Windows 11 without Dell and 3rd party apps. It will be a clean OS and you can decide which programs to install. Your Windows 11 will autoactivate using the key your system already has, you do not have to purchase another key.

Will you even be able to do a factory reset to Win 10 after the update to Win 11? The Win 11 update may/probably inactivated access to the Win 10 factory reset image.

It's likely a clean Win 11 install will also install all the drivers you need via Windows Update.

Whatever Dell apps you may want can be downloaded and installed for free from here for Win 11. Of the ones listed, the only one you may actually want/need is Waves MaxxAudio Pro which is the sound controller Dell uses on this PC model. IMO, you don't want StartByte.

If Dell also bundled Roxio or Cyberlink software with your PC, you may be able to download one of those for free from the Microsoft store, but you'll probably have to provide your Dell Service Tag before you can start the download.

@Purity777 

@RoHe 

@JOcean 

Dell recovery will not overwrite WIN11 install.

You would have to make WIN10 USB flash and DELETE all partitions and Reformat drive to blank.

The Dell Windows Applications Like Cyberlink Software ARE available but you don't need to enter your service tag.  They use WMI from within windows to tell. So you cant fake that.

DELL Applications Microsoft Windows Store

It depends what you want, but you can go either way here. It's hard for me to say with real conviction because I don't have a spare system to try it out on... but I believe this is the case:

Your system shipped with two recovery environments: Windows' own (generic Win 10) and Dell's (Win 10 plus drivers, software etc.) Your upgrade to Windows 11 upgraded the Windows recovery environment but left the Dell one alone. So... if you "Reset this PC" from Settings>System>Recovery, you get Windows 11; if you run SupportAssist OS Recovery from the preboot menu, you get Windows 10. You don't absolutely need the recovery partition(s) present to do these steps. In either case you can opt to download the recovery image on demand: "Reset this PC" from Microsoft, SupportAssist from Dell. In the latter case it will certainly reformat the entire drive.

As stated above you can also build installation media and reinstall Windows 11 (or even Windows 10, if you want). Typically you'd delete all the existing partitions on the drive at the start, and install in the unallocated space. The Microsoft installation media (or Microsoft recovery image) won't have all the platform-specific drivers, but Windows Update will install most, and you can use Dell SupportAssist/Dell Update to install any stragglers. You should not have any Windows licensing issues with any of these options.