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Windows parental controls not removed by reinstall

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 :)

twack ,

Is your friend using an online Microsoft account and not a local one? It is possible that the parental restrictions are set on their Microsoft account and not the computer.

hackris OP ,

The original one was a Microsoft account, the on my install is local

twack ,

Did they then immediately activate the office 365 that their parents paid for? Make sure it’s still a local account, because Microsoft pushes pretty hard not to have those.

hackris OP ,

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…

Vilian ,

maybe the reinstall preserved the parental control?, try to wipe the disk using another computer, or a bootable pendrive, and after the disk is clean reinstall windows

slazer2au ,

If you can’t contact the seller to remove the device from parental controls. You will have to call Microsoft and get them to do it.

BangersAndMash ,

Is the lock possibly set in the BIOS, not windows? You can often set on and off times there.

hackris OP ,

When it locks, it simply shows a regular Windows… window, that says something about usage time (trying to translate from our language). It doesn’t turn off completely

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