Restoring factory settings (Dell Dimension 4600)

Assuming you mean the PC Restore partition that is reached by pressing and releasing CTRL-F11 during the appearance of a blue stripe at the top of the screen, all information on the drive will be overwritten by this operation.  This includes the operating system.  If successful, the computer will re-boot at the conclusion of this task and display the screens that were originally displayed the first time it was turned on.  Any data or programs you have placed on the hard drive will be removed, so if you wish to keep anything you will need to save it to external media before executing this feature.

If the PC Restore works as it is supposed to work, you need nothing else except the disks you require to re-install any applications that were not delivered with the computer.

Forgive me for jumping in but it's late and Jack may be retired for the night. Applications are the programs you use: Microsoft Word, Office etc., any games or any other program that was not installed from Dell when you FIRST turned it on. Any documents, photos, software updates etc. will be gone. The operating system will be in it's pristine factory state if the retore goes according to plan. Most of the time it will. BUT, as with anything related to computers, more so with an older system, anything can happen!

Jeff :emotion-22:

If the PC Restore works as it is supposed to work, you need nothing else except the disks you require to re-install any applications that were not delivered with the computer.

Thanks for your reply.

What do you mean by "Applications"? Does it include operating systems?

The operating system will be in it's pristine factory state if the retore goes according to plan.

Thanks for clearing that Jeff,

Last question.

Do I still need the Dell XP Home OEM CD (which I lost) after the restore? 

Do I still need the Dell XP Home OEM CD (which I lost) after the restore?

No you don't.

The PC Restore feature performs a complete reinstallation of everything that was delivered with the computer.  As stated by ieee488, you don't need the Windows XP disk if PC restore still works.

You should keep in mind, however, that if your hard drive should fail you will have no way of using the PC Restore feature on the replacement hard drive.  In that event the only way you can restore your system is by using an installation disk containing the desired operating system.  It would be a good idea to request the Windows XP disk from Dell while it is still possible to get one.  You can do that by contacting Dell Tech Support to request a replacement disk, or if you live in the U.S. you can try this form:  Dell Replacement Disk.

Thanks you guys!

I turn off my Dell 4600 each night. This morning I turned it on and it said date was not set it showed date at the 2005 when it was originally purchased and software installed. It said hit F1 to go to set up or F2 and at set up I reset the date to 2014 and time. When I turned it again and powered it up same thing.When the date is off and time like this I can not log onto yahoo, or any internet site. Any ideas what to do to permanently reset the date and time to accurately reflect todays date and time?

Its an old computer 2005 but works well

It's 12 years later and I have exact same computer and problems.I retired this computer 12 years ago I now have an Apple iMac, I  need to update some Philips GoGear audio players which I cannot do on my Apple, so I got this one out storage and reconnected it, connected to internet, Firefox works correctly but Windows 8 cannot connect, so I'm about to try this method to see if it works.