Bought refurb comp from Best Buy and it's locked to another company

I made a post here a few days ago regarding this issue. The computer was asking for another company’s credentials during the initial Windows setup. Most friends suggested it might still be locked in Intune or another MDM app.

The seller sent me steps for installing Windows by booting into Windows audit mode, selecting ‘Generalize’ in the sysprep tool, and rebooting. I followed those steps and successfully installed Windows and all updates. Now, my question is: if the computer’s serial number was still in the previous management tool, how was I able to bypass that?

Why do these two statements not mesh?

Best Buy marketplace probably. Third-party sellers…

Yes, sorry I forgot to mention the Best Buy marketplace. When I couldn’t install Windows, I contacted the seller for a replacement or refund, and then he sent me those instructions.

Ok. That makes more sense.

The serial number may still be in their system, but your device hash is changed now using ‘Generalize’. Good to know…

Happens all the time. The security provider likely pushed the deactivate and uninstall command to the MDM, but it didn’t actually uninstall. It can happen frequently. But because it’s in a deactivated state, it allows for bypass.

Any MDM administrator should keep their structure clean. If a computer is ‘dead,’ it should be removed from the MDM. In the case of Intune, this causes data deletion; any hardware change causes a hash change.

This question was posted like 3 days ago about Best Buy. But the answers are in this thread too.

Sysprep with the ‘Generalize’ option removes unique SIDs and detaches the device from the previous setup.