HN Explorer

Windows 10 – Toddler Deletes Everything with 6 Clicks

8 points by scolfax ↗ HN
OK, it's a click-bait title, but check this out: You're only 6 clicks away from wiping out your Windows 10 installation.

Starting from the Desktop, click on: Start / Settings / Update & Security / Recovery / Get Started (Reset this PC) / Remove Everything

You are never asked to enter a password, or type in "Remove Everything" as a fail-safe.

11 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 16.0 ms ] thread
venomsnake
Well just ask the advertisers and they will give you all your files back. If they refuse - there is always a copy in the NSA worry not.
jjgreen
You should never have given him/her the root password.
scolfax
True, but... you obviously don't have kids! ;)
nadams
> you obviously don't have kids

"kids" should never have administrative privileges on the system (up to the point they can burn a CD - then they can have admin privileges because with enough googling they can do it themselves). And you might want to install a sandbox type program - http://alternativeto.net/software/deep-freeze/?license=free

scolfax
Windows is a consumer operating system. You and I may know the "right" way to use it, but mother-in-laws don't like passwords, kids like Minecraft, and kids = chaos.
stevep98
> You are never asked to enter a password, or type in "Remove Everything" as a fail-safe.

Some people will still do that and be surprised at the result.

My dad once reformatted his memory card on his camera, losing all his pictures from his vacation. He wanted to 'Change the Format' of the image (why? who knows), but instead he reformatted the card. "Are you Sure? Yes!"

I once copied an empty partition over a full partition instead of vice versa. I knew I only had one copy of this important data, and was trying to back it up. Are you sure? double-check.. YUP!

MartijnHoutman
Well, I had that once on my old Canon DSLR. I really wanted to change the picture format from JPEG to RAW (CR2), so I chose the 'format' option. I got into the format card menu, so I wanted to get out. There were only two options: OK and Cancel, but the interface was so bad I had no idea which button was active and which was not (the colors would invert on scrolling). A 50-50% chance, and I chose the wrong option ;) Luckily it was a quick format, so a raw scan saved my photos :)
seanwilson
Being forced to type out what you're about to do for critical actions like "remove all my data" or "deploy to production" works in my opinion. A yes/no prompt doesn't because you can get trained to click past them without reading.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
brudgers
Let's assume that there are only ten options at each level of clicking.

Thus a probability of 1 in (10^6 * the chance of your toddler getting unsupervised access while the computer is on and in an accepting state).