Actually, this was definitely not the one who got away. Red flags from the start. The start of what? A customer service interaction. People bring their consumer electronics to my service counter and I assess it for free or service it under warranty. Doors close at 9PM, time in which the interaction starts is roughly 8:48 PM.

I started off in my usual manner, greet the client, inquire on what plagues their notebook computer, and advise a solution. Sometimes the solution will cost you, other times you may already have a warranty or subscription support plan on file. In the case of this young lady, there was no warranty which covered the issue concerned. The issue being that the computer had a plethora of malware and Windoze viruses. At this point I proposed the option of enrolling in a technical support plan for the applicable fee, and as a courteous pointed out an obvious solution.

What is this obvious solution you ask? Well, in this edition of Windows 8.1 (and all of them presumably) great strides have been made in recovering from bad situations. In the past, if one was lucky they would have a feature which would restore their software to factory settings. In Windows 8.x you can perform a RESET, REFRESH or use a third party recovery feature depending on manufacturer. The RESET and REFRESH option is available to everyone and are always accessible from the same menus.

How do you begin to do a RESET or REFRESH? First you need to get to that Windoze recovery menu. An easy way is to hold down the SHIFT button while clicking restart, and then navigating to the Troubleshooting button (wrench and screwdriver). From there simply pick RESET or REFRESH. Generally you'll be better off backing up your data and then performing the RESET. A REFRESH can be cool but none that I would ever apply to my own hardware. A RESET will do what it says to your software and settings so back up that which you cannot afford to lose!

How is it that I could deem this to be an obvious solution? Well you see, the client was a young girl just at the start of her college education experience. She needed her main laptop to work for the school year and so she showed at my service counter accompanied by her mother. While I was powering up her slow ass computer, and looking up any potential warranties that may be on file, time was also spend in conversing. It always helps to determine what the client really uses their computer for and to be aware of any irreplaceable software packages. Somewhere in the talk, the girl told me that she was majoring in "computer networking" and went on to express how she "loves windows .. always been fascinated by all the tings you could do with that." I'm gullible and idealistic enough to believe people, if only for a short period of time when they tell me such bullshit. Since this girl was a computer geek based on her words, of course she would be able to do a RESET or REFRESH if I showed her how to navigate to it!

The whole interaction didn't finish until nearly eight minutes after we closed up shoppe! The girl and her mom were definitely trying to get me to fix their shit for free and I certainly wasn't having that. I don't mind giving quick advice when it doesn't fall on deaf ears and if it doesn't backfire by consuming a large amount of time to explain if necessary.

TL;DR: Bottom line, for future reference, that's how you do a RESET in Windows 8.