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Corperate dell
I got a dell optiplex off ebay. I was installing windows 10 on it after formatting the drive. I reached the point where it asks you for a serial key or you can say you do not have one.
Instead I get a welcome to invesco. Where I have to put in a invesco email or a key from a usb device.
Clearly this computer was a corperate system. I would like to know how to wipe what ever the security is on it and restore it to factory defaults.
Thank you
fireberd
9 Legend
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33.3K Posts
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May 22nd, 2022 08:00
A couple suggestions.
1. Do a "hard" CMOS reset, which should restore BIOS to original factory. Have it powered off and AC power cable disconnected. Open case and locate the CR2032 coin cell battery on the motherboard. Remove the battery for at least 10 minutes then reinstall. Considering this is not a new PC this is a good time to replace the 2032 with a new batttery.
2. When you "reformat" the drive make sure its the entire drive, not just the system partition, before installing.
sam55todd
2 Intern
2 Intern
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239 Posts
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May 22nd, 2022 10:00
It means this device is controlled via Microsoft Intune service (enrolled to corporate device management).
If they've legitimately disposed/sold it to a third party then you can call their IT department and ask to deregister it from their account (although it's a bit hard to deal with them as they are not motivated to do it and there's a long channel of finding right person who can do it).
But you still can install fresh copy of Windows, just extract OEM key from BIOS records and create preconfigured Autounattend.xml file deployed onto your Win installation media (possibly even with ei.cfg and PID.txt files, I can't remember the process in details anymore, perhaps there was even override method via OOBE with disconnected network). But this override still leaves a risk that company can take some control over your device remotely to deploy or make configuration changes to your device.
revelationsr
12 Posts
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May 22nd, 2022 12:00
I have decided to return the machine. Thank you for your support.
bradthetechnut
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8.2K Posts
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May 22nd, 2022 17:00
That was probably the best bet. Seller didn't make sure it was wiped as thoroughly clean as they should have.
fireberd
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May 23rd, 2022 02:00
There was a long, 3-page, thread on tenforums.com by the user. Lots of theories but no resolution.
fireberd
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33.3K Posts
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May 23rd, 2022 14:00
The guys on the tenforums.com finally nailed the problem, Microsoft "Autopilot" app. The corporate IT still has this PC's hardware ID in their domain. With Autopilot as soon as there is an Internet connection Autopilot is activated and the corporate info is required.