OMG please help, luddites can't work computer

[Kali]

husband who is lamer than me bought a new windows 11 laptop (from walmart) last year. I tried to help him set it up a few days ago. seemed to go OK though the guy hasn't looked at his msn.com email in 10 years, we went ahead and put it in as one of the two addresses they demanded. the other was an new outlook.com address that was seemingly not optional (wtf?).

I don't know what he did, he says nothing - but this morning it is claiming his pin is not there and is going in insane circular security procedures. I tried to use my email to communicate and now have a message that the account is blocked and need to start over with the whole thing.

my question - anyway to start the set up completely over? holy shit. national security level BULLSHIT so some old guy can watch you tube videos on a bigger screen than his phone!!!

[TBF]

1. Just giving a bump because I am a similar luddite -

who requires my kids to help when I can't figure out what I'm doing! I am very proud to work the apps on my phone now, although my daughter is responsible for getting me into those and showing me how they work. It is all Greek to me ...

And I had to lol when you said you bought the laptop last year - I sat on a new iPad for months until my husband finally said, "if you're not going to use that thing, I'm giving it a try" and now he carries it around wherever he goes. I think he figured out how to access the tennis channel on it. Mostly we still use our PC's.

[Kali]

6. pretty much how the laptop I have has been treated

it is a 10 and I hate it, hardly ever open it. desktop or phone for me. I am a little better at this stuff than him, but not much. I def have more patience to figure things out but this crap this morning! OMG if we were closer to town I might have gone back to walmart and chucked it across the store!

[Jim__]

2. Does this video help?

[Kali]

5. thank you!

I think that will help

[LuvLoogie]

3. Is it Windows 11 Home or Windows 11 Pro?

To factory reset a Windows 11 PC without logging in, access the sign-in screen, hold the Shift key, and click Power > Restart. In the blue Recovery menu that appears, navigate to Troubleshoot > Reset this PC > Remove everything. Follow the prompts to complete the reset.

[Kali]

4. no idea

probably Home? but will try that

[LuvLoogie]

7. The reason I ask is because with Pro

you don't have to create a Microsoft account for setup. With home, you will be able to create a local account after your initial set up, then remove the Microsoft account sign-in. They don't make it easy in either case, but it is easier in Pro even though it isn't the default option in the initial set up.

But make sure you write down your login credentials. And if you have to use an MS account for set up. See if you can create it and log into that first via a different device on line. But don't tie that other device to your account.

Also make sure you have a recovery email available, you can use your own that you used for your DU setup.

[Kali]

9. everything was written down, for sure!

problem started today with screen announcing password or pin lost or invalid or something (already can't remember now) before anything was even done other than opening the lid!

I read about avoiding the microsoft account before trying to set it up the other day, but it seemed too complicated for us to deal with. they should just stop all this shit if the user's birthdate is before 1990!

[Dan]

8. Thank you, outstanding video.

[LuvLoogie]

10. You're welcome.

Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2026, 03:56 PM - Edit history (1)

A lot of good How To on YouTube. I'm glad that so many are so generous with taking the time to create clear, concise demonstration videos on so many topics.