Wipe or reset Windows 365 Link device

You can return Windows 365 Link devices to their factory default state. This return to factory settings can be useful:

  • When experiencing performance issues or software problems
  • To repurpose the device.

There are several ways to return a Windows 365 Link device to its factory default state:

  • Intune Wipe remote device action.
  • Company Portal Reset.
  • Windows Recovery Environment reset.
  • Bare Metal Recovery (BMR)

After completing one of these methods to restore the Windows 365 Link device to factory settings, the next time a user turns it on they’ll be prompted through the Setup and sign-in process as a first-time user of the device.

Intune Wipe remote device action

You can use the Intune Wipe device action to restore a Windows 365 Link device to factory settings. For more information, see Wipe.

Company Portal Reset

You can use the Company Portal app for Windows to reset a Windows 365 Link device to factory settings.

For more information, see Reset device in Company Portal app for Windows.

Windows Recovery Environment Reset

Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) can, among other things, reset a Windows 365 Link device to factory settings.

For more information, see Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE).

A BitLocker recovery key for the device is required to execute a device reset from WinRE. For instructions on how to get the key, see Self-recovery in Microsoft Entra ID.

For Windows 365 Link devices, WinRE starts automatically after detecting the following issues:

  • Two consecutive failed attempts to start Windows.
  • Two consecutive unexpected shutdowns that occur within two minutes of boot completion.
  • Two consecutive system reboots within two minutes of boot completion.
  • A Secure Boot error (except for issues related to Bootmgr.efi).

Bare Metal Recovery (BMR)

Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) allows you to recover a Windows 365 Link device by re-imaging it with a factory recovery image. This option is typically used when the device cannot boot or when in‑OS reset options are unavailable.

Prerequisites

  • Physical access to the device
  • A USB drive with sufficient capacity
  • A supported Windows 365 Link BMR recovery image (language-specific)

Create and use a BMR recovery drive

Important

Bare Metal Recovery requires physical access to the device and should be used only when remote recovery options are not available.

Note

Some Windows 365 Link BMR images include overlapping language support. If your required language appears in more than one available download, either image can be used successfully. The only difference between these downloads is the full set of additional languages included in each package.

To perform a bare metal recovery, follow these steps:

  1. Download and extract the recovery image Download and extract the Windows 365 Link BMR image for your required language:

    • Windows 365 Link BMR image with language set 1
      Supported languages:

      • English (United States) – en-US (default)
      • English (United Kingdom) – en-GB
      • French (Canada) – fr-CA
      • French (France) – fr-FR
      • German – de-DE
      • Dutch – nl-NL
      • Swedish – sv-SE
      • Italian – it-IT
      • Danish – da-DK
      • Japanese – ja-JP

    • Windows 365 Link BMR image with language set 2
      Supported languages:

      • English (United States) – en-US (default)
      • Spanish (Spain) – es-ES
      • German – de-DE
      • French (France) – fr-FR
      • Dutch – nl-NL
      • Finnish – fi-FI
      • Swedish – sv-SE
      • Polish – pl-PL

    • Windows 365 Link BMR image with language set 3
      Supported languages:

      • English (United States) – en-US (default)
      • Dutch – nl-NL
      • French (France) – fr-FR

  2. Create a USB factory recovery drive
    Follow the instructions in the Surface support documentation, starting with the section Create and use a USB recovery drive for Surface

Important

Ensure that the option "Back up system files to the recovery drive" is unchecked.

  1. Enter the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and use the USB recovery drive to re-image the device:

    • In WinRE, select Advanced options
    • Select Use device
    • Select USB Storage

    The Windows 365 Link device will restart. Once it completes the restart:

    • Choose your keyboard layout
    • Select Recover from a drive
    • Skip BitLocker recovery key for the device
    • Select whether to Just remove my files or Fully clean the drive based on your specific case

After the process completes, the device restarts with the factory image applied and can be reprovisioned using your standard Windows 365 and Intune workflows.

Next steps

Set up your Windows 365 Link and sign in

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