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Hi, I bought a few used 10 Pro Dell desktops and laptops during a liquidation sale from a business to refurbish and resell, but after resetting or clean install if I connect to internet during initial setup (OOBE) it says Welcome to XYZ Company please sing in with your company email address.
Laptops came with 10 Pro so I can't enter a different key during installation.
How can I remove this? A clean install on brand new ssd doesn't change this as the 10 pro key is in the UEFI/BIOS.
If I don't connect to internet during OOBE, I can set up with a local account with no issue, but incase whoever uses it wants to reset it, I don't want to have problems in the future.
If the pc is connected to the company's Azure or something, then I don't want them to be able to lock it or remotely wipe it or do anything else with the device.
I believe the company was bought out so there's nobody there who would be willing to help.
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I just went through this with a machine that was previously connected to Azure AD.
The issue is that the computer was previously part of Azure Autopilot. In order to regain control of the equipment, the hardware hash of the machine must be deleted from the autopilot database by the company. Once that is complete you will be able to install windows as normal (I just completed this process on my equipment).
To find your hardware hash ID you can run the following code in an elevated PowerShell window.
> NOTE: I had the ability to login using my current company credentials to get this information. You obviously don't have that luxury. I would suggest contacting the company and provide them with as much system information as possible; any hardware serial numbers or asset tags on the machine.
New-Item -Type Directory -Path "C:\HWID"
Set-Location -Path "C:\HWID"
$env:Path += ";C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Scripts"
Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
Install-Script -Name Get-WindowsAutoPilotInfo
Get-WindowsAutoPilotInfo -OutputFile AutoPilotHWID.csv
I know this is only partially helpful because it requires a functioning version of windows to get the information. However, at least this is an explanation of why it's happening, and hopefully gives some non-obvious direction on how to resolve it.
Here's link to the source material for that code:
https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/mem/autopilot/add-devices#powershell
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You actually helped me figure it out by mentioning the internet. I made sure my drive was erased, and didn't connect to the internet until Windows 10 was fully installed. It worked great!
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i am unfortunately in the same boat, “refurbished” hp elitebook from a defunct company. i see where you were able to complete setup as long as you waited to connect to the internet until after setup. i was able to do the same, and even was able to log in and connect and download firefox, but then at some point got a pop up that said “THIS COMPUTER IS PROPERTY OF XYZ COMPANY” “if you think this is in error contact xyz@mathieu.company .com”. did you deal with this as well? or do you have any other solutions?
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I had the same problem even with a reformatted (low level format) SSD,brand new SSD etc. I did the following to work around this annoying issue:-
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This is not a solution and has zero to do with re-installing or re-formatting while off the Internet. As soon as you connect back to Internet, the motherboard hardware ID will be seen by Azure and it will be once again seen as owned by the prior company that enrolled the system /mobo into AutoPilot. This required an actual Support call to Microsoft, with them having to override and remove the AutoPilot registration from the prior owning company AND PROOF OF PURCHASE; we had to provide the invoice where we purchased the laptop from Dell. You do need the mobile hardware ID to create the Microsoft case. After that ticket, then all was perfect. This is a HUGE hole and supposedly will be fixed in the near future. Bottom line: if I purchase a new laptop, I am the only one who should "own and control" that laptop and it's components! EVERY vendor *Dell, HP, etc needs to provide only motherboards that are truly "brand new" or FULLY reset and having NO connections to any other company's InTune AutoPilot. The liability resides with the manufacturers such as Dell, as well as Microsoft, who should all team up on providing a working solution! If this is NOT fixed very soon, I sense a class action lawsuit.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for posting the detailed answer - most useful - I can stop wasting time trying out so called solutions to resolve this issue.
Can you please confirm how you can get the required Mobile Hardware ID and also any particular department at MS to ask for - assuming I manage to get through?
It the ID the same as the post above by Steve Graham?
Thanks
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try clearing TPM and disable Absolute/Computrace in the bios