Hello everyone,

a friend of mine recently bought a second-hand laptop but, as we soon discovered, the seller left parental controls on it. The computer locks itself at a set time every day and doesn’t allow the user to log back in.

So I tried to help. I created a bootable USB with Windows 10, wiped the disk in the computer and reinstalled. Thinking I had solved the problem, as an OS reinstall should, in this case, I gave it back to my friend. I just received a message from her, that the laptop just locked itself again.

Why is this happening? Are the parental controls somehow tied to a unique identifier, such as the built-in Windows activation code or similar? And, most importantly, how do I remove them?

Thanks a lot :)

  • hackrisOP
    1·
    1 year ago

    Funny thing is, they didn’t pay. I installed Office 365 and activated it with my own key, and you bet I haven’t put any parental control on there. I even checked if it enabled itself by chance, but it didn’t. She also signed into the PC with her account, but the issue existed before we used any Microsoft account…