How to Reinstall or Install Windows 10 With Privacy Settings

How to Reinstall or Install Windows 10 With Privacy Settings

Windows 10 Recovery Reinstall

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The Best Guide Ever Written For Installing or Repairing Windows 10 With Privacy (For DVD and USB Recovery Media)


If you are using a USB flash drive then you will have a unified USB with 2 partitions on it. One is your operating system recovery partition and the other the Restore.Solutions driver recovery and install software.

If you are using recovery DVDs then you will have 2 x DVDs one labelled "Operating System Recovery" and the other labelled "Driver Recovery".

To make your computer start from the USB or DVD you will need to make sure your computer is set to boot from your chosen recovery media.

Most computers will display a message, on startup or reset, that states "Press [key] to enter setup" or something similar.

Restart or reset your system and look for this message, as this is the key that is used to access your BIOS settings.

If you are not sure what key to press to enter your BIOS, below is a list of common BIOS entry keys by manufacturer.
Depending on the age of your system, the BIOS entry key may be slightly different but try any of the ones below.

    ASRock: F2 or DEL
    ASUS: F2 for all PCs, F2 or DEL for Motherboards
    Acer: F2 or DEL
    Dell: F2 or F12
    ECS: DEL
    Gigabyte / Aorus: F2 or DEL
    HP: F10
    Lenovo (Consumer Laptops): F2 or Fn + F2
    Lenovo (Desktops): F1
    Lenovo (ThinkPads): Enter then F1.
    MSI: DEL for motherboards and PCs
    Microsoft Surface Tablets: Press and hold volume up button.
    Origin PC: F2
    Samsung: F2
    Toshiba: F2
    Zotac: DEL
   
All BIOS pages look different, as do boot menus, the example below is an older BIOS version, used to keep the instructions as simple as possible.

If you are in doubt please search for YOUR COMPUTER MAKE AND MODEL + "How to boot from DVD" . This search should glean many results for your specific computer.


phoenix bios setup utility

Almost all computers, manufactured over the last 5 years have the "Secure Boot" system built in.

When "Secure Boot" is enabled you can NOT boot up from any media apart from your hard disk / SSD.

In most cases you will HAVE to turn "Secure Boot" to OFF
Make sure "Legacy Mode" or "Legacy Boot" is set to ON
Set "CMS" to ON or ENABLED

The location of the "Secure Boot" setting, in your BIOS, is normally under Security.
However, this is manufacture and model specific as are the other settings, such as "CMS" and "Legacy".
Some of these may be listed under your "Boot Options" tab in your BIOS.
 
Not all systems have "Secure Boot" or the other options, so do not be alarmed if it is not present.

However in all cases you HAVE to boot or start your computer from the recovery media, and not from your internal hard disk drive / SSD.

 



phoenix bios boot options screen

Next  you will need to Navigate to the Boot or Boot Options tab. You will likely need to use the arrow keys to select it.




phoenix bios boot options screen

Select a device to boot from. You have a few options. Again this is manufacturer and BIOS dependent, every computers BIOS will look slightly different.

For a USB flash drive, select the Removable Devices option.
For a disc / DVD installation, select the CD-ROM Drive option.

Once you have selected the correct boot device you will need to save your settings and exit. You should see a tab or press a key to do this such as [F10] at the bottom of the screen or something that says "Save and Exit". As soon as you select it the system will save your BIOS settings and restart your computer.

You may have to press [Enter] to confirm the changes.




press any key to boot from dvd cd usb

If you have setup your BIOS correctly, as soon as your computer restarts, you will see a prompt saying "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD" it may specify an alternative device such as a USB flash drive.
At this point you MUST press any key to boot from your DVD or USB recovery media.




windows startup logo

Next you will need to wait for your computer to restart. Once your computer has restarted, you should see a window exactly as above.




enter your region

Next choose the correct language, time, keyboard and currency format for your location and press next. You will be asked this again later on in the install.




install windows now

Next just click the [Install now] button to start the Windows install or reinstall process.




accept the windows license agreement

If you agree and you want to install Windows then you will need to accept the license agreement and click the [Next] button.




install or upgrade

If you click the upgrade box then all your files and apps should be preserved. The recovery media will then try to repair and or upgrade your current operating system without formatting or deleting any information from your current install. This should be a very straight forward process for upgrading an older edition of Windows.




upgrade or install

The alternative option is the Custom install selection box.  This will carry out a complete clean re-install along with hard disk formatting and optional re-partitioning.

For the purposes of this document we will proceed with the clean install option, as from this point the upgrade option is very intuitive andfollows a very similar path as the Custom install.




select a partition

You will be presented with all your current hard disk partitions. Your particular setup may have 3 or 4 separate partitions all labeled differently. For a safe clean install we need to delete all of them (or as many as we can) and make one single larger partition. Keep in mind windows will turn this into more than one at the point of install.




delete an old partition

Select each partition in turn and repeat the process by selecting and deleting each one in turn. every time you do this you will see one of the single partitions get bigger, this is normally marked as Unallocated Space.




consolidate partitions

Once you have the large Unallocated Space block, select it and then select the button that says [New] exactly as in the screen capture above.




make new partition

Then let the system automatically decide the size for you, just press the [Apply] button unless you are an advanced user and want to make custom sizes and partitions.




select the partition to install windows on

Once you have completed this, the system will automatically add a System Reserved partition. This is completely normal and is the built in recovery data that Windows makes in case you need it in the future.

Just click the [Next] button and the the installation will start.




copying windows files

You may have to wait a fair amount of time as the next step, seen above, as it depends upon your computers hard disk throughput and processor speed. So this could be anything from 5 minutes to an hour but you will see a progress report marked in % for each of the install sections.




copying windows files progress count

Just keep waiting for the system to copy and install all the Windows files, there is another progress readout in %.




windows startup with logo

As soon as Windows has copied all the relevant files and is ready to start the next phase you will see a page as above. Your System may reboot one or more times from this point.




just a moment windows screen

Once your system has restarted you will see another page asking you to wait. There are a lot of very similar pages that appear that ask you to wait. This is normal!




select your region again

We are now getting into the setup stages, it is important to get this part right as there is a lot of regional specific settings as well as privacy and data sharing options. Just select the region that you want Windows to associate your physical location with.




is this the right keyboard layout

Although you have already selected your keyboard and regional settings Windows will ask you to reconfirm it here.




add a second keyboard layout

Skip this or or add one!




important setting up to do

Yet another disguised please wait screen! There will be more of these types of messages later.




windows personal or business account

For the purposes of this article we will proceed to set up the operating system for personal use. If you are part of an organization your I.T. administrator should be able to help you out.




sign in for full range of apps and services

Windows will want you to link your install to your Microsoft registered account. If you have one and you are happy to do this then enter it here. For the purposes of this document we will proceed with an offline account. Look at the bottom left and click the button that says "Offline account". This selection will let you set-up Windows without entering an email address.




sign in with a limited experience

Windows is going to try to convince you that you will loose out if you do not agree to an install that is attached to an email address or Microsoft account. It maybe that you will and that you should add an email address, but for the purposes of privacy and for this document we will proceed as previously selected. So if you don't want to sign in with an account select the button labeled "Limited experience" at the bottom left of the screen.




who is going to use this pc

Now you just need to enter a user name for this Windows account and click [Next].




create a password

Now you just need to enter a password and click the [Next] button. If at any point you forget your password you can use our password recovery software to reset it.




create security questions for windows account

To make sure you are who you say you are for future issues, you will be asked to create 3 security questions for your account. These can range from the name of your first pet to how tall your grandmother is, or indeed if you like pork chops.




do more accross devices with active history

The next step is amed at connectivity and linking. If you want to link in other apps and devices such as your mobile phone then click the Yes button. However in the interest of privacy we will click the [No] button.




get help from your digital assistant

If you like voice recognition and integration with a digital assistant then click [Accept]. This will integrate Microsoft's Cortana into your operating system. Cortana operates much like a smart speaker such as Alexa or Google Home. However in the interests of privacy we will press the [Decline] button.




do more with your voice

Would you like your PC to send your conversations and commands to an on-line server to process for voice recognition? This will allow you to use dictation and many other voice operated applications. In the interest of privacy and to disallow the use of your conversations to train A.I speech recognition systems we will select "Don't use online speech recognition" and then we will press the [Accept] button.

let microsoft and apps use your location

Would you like apps to know your location? This is the kind of data that allows automatic weather forecasts for your area to be displayed. You can just type in your location into an app if you don't want your location data automatically shared. In the interests of privacy we will select the "No" section and then click the [Accept] button.




find my device

More useful features that use tracking, in this case it is to find your lost device for you, really good if you loose it and you need Microsoft to tell you exactly where it is. In the interests of privacy for multiple devices we will select the "No" box and then press the [Accept]button.




send diagnostic data to microsoft

You may want to opt in to send Microsoft more of your personal data and allow them to know how you use apps, websites and data about the health of your hardware. You cant really opt out of this you can just select the "Basic" box and the click the [Accept] button.




improve inking and typing

This will either allow or deny Microsoft to use your typing data to improve  language recognition and suggestion capabilities. This is again A.I. training data that you can opt in to provide. In the interests of privacy we will select the "No" box and then select the [Accept] button.




get tailored experiences with diagnostic data

We have selected the "No" box and then pressed [Accept] as we do not want to send data to Microsoft and allow their profiling A.I. to send us tips and tricks based on our use of Windows.




let apps use advertising id

Yet more personal data being used to track and improve your experience, you may want to enable this if you want target advertising. We have turned this off as we do not wish to be profiled for advertising purposes. Select the "No" box and then click the [Accept] button.




we are getting everything ready for you

Yay!! We are almost ready to go! The system is just getting everything ready to go.
Yes its another please wait screen.




this might take several minutes

Nearly there, no this time we really are nearly there!!




windows 10 first desktop load screen

And we are done! If you have missing drivers then use our driver recovery disk! Information on how to use it can be found here

All installed and ready to go!

Easy as pie!

If you have any issues at all please contact us we are always happy to help.

The PDF version is here Windows 10 reinstall instructions

How to Boot from a UEFI BIOS Video

Updated 06/04/2023

Article Written By Restore Solutions : August 1st, 2020.