Nearly every single business organization facilitates their employees with customized laptops that are set at the company’s VPN and database connection. These laptops are not worthy to be used as an all-rounder, hence I don’t prefer to use my official laptop as a personal one, as I feel it’s not secure too.
But, if you are done with your job responsibilities and now is the time to enjoy the leisure of your retirement, you can go to convert your work laptop to the personal one.
And that can simply be done by reinstalling the Windows, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. Because most organizational laptops have customized locking systems and you have to look to unlock them and check how to convert work laptops to personal.
For more details, let’s read the article below.
Contents
Convert a Corporate Laptop for Personal Use:
Below is the list of actions that can be performed safely and you can convert your work laptop for personal use? However, for third-party app-related issues, you can check for a few on/off options available in your system. Let’s dig deep into this!
Secure Your Data:
To be on the safer side, it is wise to keep your official data along with you and obviously, you need to keep it safe and unreachable by any alien user. To facilitate so, this and make partitions on the disk, there is software available in the market.
The most reliable and secure software to keep your data safe is TrueCrypt and BitLocker. This software encrypts your files and keeps them safe and unreachable from any alien user.
Deactivate any Anti-Virus you have:
Business Organization laptops carry tons of sensitive information, whose security is the utmost priority for any data owner. Hence, in addition to the default Windows anti-virus, official laptops have many third-party-owned ad-on installed to enhance the protection.
Yes! Antiviruses are crucial and mandatory to keep your laptop working smoothly. But, personal laptops do not require such high-grade security. Activating the built-in anti-virus Window Defender is enough to keep your window protected.
Disable Window Firewall Updates:
As now you want to use your official laptop as a personal one, you don’t need to keep your Window as up-to-date as it was required before. So, can safely disable the Window updates. It will disable the regular window update that was critical when the laptop was in official use as the company’s data was there on your laptop.
Save the uninstalled software :
You must always have some contingency plans in your mind. Yes! You are going to uninstall much software in the conversion process, but it doesn’t mean that you might not require those later at any part of life.
So, keep that software separate on the drive preferably on the USB, thatmake=s them portable and available for use on the go. Well, it is just a contingency plan, otherwise, TrueCrypt is safe, proficient, and reliable.
Install Virtual Machine Software:
Install the Virtual Machine Software, to keep your laptop protected against malware attacks. Moreover, this software will allow you to make different Windows OS versions on the same laptop and keep your account safe and separate.
Change the Profile
Official laptops are designed for task coherence and data sharing is made easy on such systems. They are designed to monitor your work efficiency and progress pf your work so far. But for a personal laptop, you do not require any of these so better to go for another account- a Guest account.
To do so, go to a directory and delete all the subsidiary accounts available there. Go to Guest Account> Guest Post> Directory. Delete other irrelevant directories available here. You can install Virtual Machine Software to get the job done for you. Once done, this Guest Account is your personal account now.
Ensure your Personal Information Safety:
As you have disabled Firewall and Window updates on your laptop, you are concerned about your personal photos or any other data security. To ensure the safety of encrypted data, it is recommended to open it in incognito windows.
Turn on the Private Browsing Mode on your browser, this can be done by Clicking on the Incognito Window option, available at the drop-down list located at the extreme top right-hand side of your browser window. Using a private browser can even keep your search history safe.
Change The Username and Password:
As now you have created another account on one Window OS, set its username and password. Always go for the password that is easy to remember but hard to guess. Once you are done with this, simply switch between the accounts on your laptop.
Windows Reinstallation:
If you don’t want to keep two user accounts on one laptop, you simply reinstall the window after securing your data on some external drive. New Window OS will refresh everything and you will have to re-install all the necessary apps and software again. But, it is your safest and fully personal account of yours.
Is it safe to use an Official Laptop for Personal Use?
Well, to be honest, I don’t feel at ease using the official laptop for personal use. It is because official laptops are designed to serve the organization, are not all-rounder and secure to keep personal data on them.
But yes! If you fulfill all the security protocols and follow the methods described above to be sure about your data security then there is no issue in using your official laptop for personal use.
Conclusion
Hope this will suffice your requirement on How to convert work laptop to personal. All the options stated above are user-friendly, safe, and easy to operate. If you follow the steps properly as depicted you can safely convert your official laptop for personal use. Whether you reinstall the Window or create another personal account to switch accounts in between, we have all covered for you. Hope you will enjoy reading the text above!