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How to Restore a Windows 8 Computer to Its Factory Settings

When using a Windows 8 laptop or PC many users may find it gets slower and slower in running over time. What’s worse, they usually get application crashes, system failure, blue screen, black screen of death and some other issues. They try to find the real cause but fail. Faced with this situation many users will choose to factory reset their computer, which can wipe all data and regain a clean system. The good news is that it is easy to reset Windows 8. Now let’s look at how to restore a Windows 8 computer to its factory settings. Before starting, you need a Windows 8 installation media or recovery drive.

Now insert your Windows 8 installation media or recovery drive to your computer and then follow the steps below.

Step 1: Press Win + C key combination to quickly open the charms bar. Click on "settings".

Click Settings in Charms bar

Step 2: On Settings pane click on "Change PC settings".

Click on Change PC settings

Step 3: Click on "General" and on the right pane click on "Get started" under the "Remove everything and reinstall Windows".

Click on Get started

Step 4: You are prompted all your personal files and apps will be removed and your pc settings will be changed back to their defaults. Click on Next to continue.

Reset your PC

Step 5: If you want to get a totally clean system select "All drives". Or select "Only the drive where Windows is installed". Just depend on your requirements.

Select the drive

Step 6: Select "Fully clean the drive" to destroy all data.

Fully clean the drive

Step 7: Click on Reset to continue.

Ready to Reset

Then Windows factory restore process starts. Windows will reboot displaying the screen with "Preparing your PC" and Resetting your PC messages. The following steps are just like when you install a system. It will take some minutes to finish and your Windows 8 computer should be restored to its factory settings just like when you bought it. So you get a totally clean system.