How to LEAVE a domain and revert to a home computer

Question

While I was employed, the company had Administrator rights on my PC. They let me go last year, but my Windows 10 Pro still behaves as if it were joined to that domain. I want to upgrade to Windows 11, but Windows Update shows the message *Some settings are managed by your organisation.

I have run "dsregcmd /debug /leave" -- both as Administrator and as SYSTEM [C:\a\PStools\psexec.exe -sid dsregcmd /debug /leave]. See attached image showing results of "dsregcmd /status".

I have renamed my PC to be simply MYPC. I have changed the workgroup to be HOME. I deleted the environmental variable BLAB_MEM (no idea what that is for). Whenever I select "This is a home computer" and click Next, then Finish, it immediately reverts to "This computer is part of a business network".

I have followed all the instructions at
https://windowsreport.com/your-organization-manages-updates-windows-10
https://windowsreport.com/some-settings-are-managed-by-your-organization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWpFXo4aD3w

How can I please LEAVE the domain from my old company and go back to being a Home PC, so that the organization will not prevent my upgrade?

Answer 1

Hello Phil Irving,
Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

Form the screenshot you provided, it seems your machine is not in any domain.

You can check if your machine in in domain, right click this PC and click Properties and check device name and full device name. If full device name is like PC.domain.com, it means the machine is in domain. If it is workgroup, it means the machine is not in any domain.

If it is in domain, you can try to remove the machine from domain via System Properties below.

Then provide the local Administrator and password (or provide any domain user account and password if you know).

Or you can try to use this Powershell command:

Remove-Computer -UnjoinDomaincredential Domain_Name\Administrator -PassThru -Verbose -Restart -Force

Enter the domain administrator password when prompted, and click OK.

If you do not have the any domain account and password ( domain admin account and domain user account), I suggest you to backup important files and informations, and re-install the OS.

If your machine is not in any domain (it is only in workgroup), you can try to check if there is any local group policy setting controlled it.

I hope the information above is helpful.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Daisy Zhou

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