Windows 7 Cleaning up windows 7 files/folders before selling my laptop

[Ankur]

Hey guys, it seems after 7 years of perfectly working 2nd gen Intel laptop I need to sell out my laptop to upgrade to better/faster 8th/9th gen Intel.

Its a Dell XPS 15, so the question I have is, is there any software or an approach which can get my C drive cleaned up without wiping out the OS from the system?

Of course I will take backup of my important files, but I don't want to format the drive, but keep the OS and remove my personal data.

Looking forward to your inputs .

 

[_Pete_]

I don't see why you don't want to reinstall Windows 7. It really is the best way to ensure that nothing is left of yours on your hard drive and even this is not 100% secure. If your operating system is Windows 7 it should have come with a disk and you should have a valid Microsoft product number. If the people you bought your Windows 7 computer scammed you and didn't provide a Windows 7 disk you can still download an ISO of Windows 7 to make a disk from providing you have a valid Microsoft product number.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows7

If you don't have a valid Microsoft product number then I'm afraid you are on your own.

Personally I would destroy, or at least remove and keep as a spare, the existing hard drive and put a new one in and reflect that in your selling price or sell the computer as is with no hard drive. Your not going to get much for a 7 year old computer anyway.

 

[Darren]

Reinstall is by far the easiest. Windows 10 runs fine on those and you can still do the upgrade. Probably have an easier time selling it with 10 on it too. You can do the free upgrade still and just have it wipe everything when it does it.