Refurbished laptop enrolled in company on set up

Hello Merstrom,

What you are seeing is a classic case of a device that was previously enrolled in an organization’s Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) or Intune MDM. Even though Dell wiped and reinstalled Windows, the enrollment information is stored in the device’s firmware and provisioning package. That’s why, during OOBE (the initial setup wizard), Windows automatically tries to rejoin the company tenant and forces the “Work or School” login screen with the company name.

The only way to fully remove that is to break the device’s association with the company tenant. A simple reinstall of Windows does not clear the Autopilot profile or Azure AD join metadata.

The proper resolution is for the original company’s IT administrator to release the device from their Azure AD and Intune environment. They need to remove the hardware hash from Windows Autopilot and deregister the device from their tenant. Until that is done, every reinstall will continue to pull down the enrollment profile and force you into their login flow.

As the end user, you cannot override this on your own. Even if you manage to log in locally, the device remains bound to the tenant and will continue to enforce policies. You need Dell or the company that originally owned the device to confirm that the hardware hash has been removed from Autopilot and that the device object has been deleted from Azure AD. Once that is completed, a clean reinstall of Windows will behave normally and allow you to set up with a personal Microsoft account.

I hope you've found something useful here. If it helps you get more insight into the issue, it's appreciated to accept the answer. Should you have more questions, feel free to leave a message. Have a nice day!

Domic Vo.

The device is still registered and managed as a corporate-owned, Microsoft Entra ID–joined / MDM-enrolled device for that company. Because of that, the Windows Out of Box Experience (OOBE) is being driven by the organization’s enrollment/profile and forces the “work or school” sign-in during setup. This behavior is expected for a device that remains in the company’s Microsoft Entra / Intune environment.

There is no supported way from the consumer side to remove that company enrollment or Entra join. The organization (the company shown on the sign-in screen) must:

1. Remove the device from its Microsoft Entra tenant (delete the device object / unjoin from Entra ID).
2. Remove or retire the device from its MDM (for example, Intune) so it is no longer marked as corporate-owned or auto-enrolled.

Only after the company has done this will a clean reinstall stop forcing the work/school login and allow normal personal setup.

Given that this is a refurbished device sold by Dell, the practical options are:

1. Work with Dell so they coordinate with the original customer (or their IT) to:
   • Remove the device from Microsoft Entra ID.
   • Remove it from any MDM (Intune or other) where it is enrolled. Once that is done, perform another full wipe and reinstall.
2. If Dell cannot get the device released from the company’s tenant, request a replacement device that is not enrolled in any organization.

Locally creating an offline account, as already done, is only a workaround; it does not remove the cloud enrollment, so any future reset/OOBE will continue to show the company sign-in.

References:

• Join your work device to your work or school network
• MDM enrollment of Windows devices
• Troubleshoot Windows device access