Restoring state of delivery?

[feklee]

I want to sell my ThinkPad T61 and would like to restore the Windows Vista installation to the state that it was in when I got the machine. So I started Rescue&Recovery, pressing the blue ThinkVantage button. After some hours, the process finished. However, the problem is that it ends with a wizard guiding me through the initial setup. That's not what I want. That's what the buyer of my machine should do by himself. Unfortunately, I cannot simply shut down the machine when the wizard starts. If I do that, then, on the next start, I get an ugly error message asking whether to start Windows in "safe mode", etc..

What to do? How do I setup the machine so that, when the new owner starts it, he is presented with the wizard and not with error messages?

[carbon_unit]

Proceed with the setup. When asked to agree with the Microsoft EULA, do not agree. The computer will shut down. When the next person agrees, it will continue.

[sparta.rising]

1) When you finish with the restore procedure, the laptop should restart, when it is still at the Lenovo boot screen, shut-off, it will not bring up the "Boot in Safe Mode" option screen because it did not yet enter the windows startup.

2) There is an application that allows you to "wrap-up" Windows so that on the next boot it will return to the setup screen. I don't remember exactly what its called... but its useful for IT departments that want to create custom installs but let the end-user configure their user information.

[feklee]

Proceed with the setup. When asked to agree with the Microsoft EULA, do not agree. The computer will shut down. When the next person agrees, it will continue.

Thanks fo the hint. But, unfortunately, that's not possible with the Vista install I have here. You cannot "continue" if you don't accept the EULA, and there is no shut down option.

[feklee]

1) When you finish with the restore procedure, the laptop should restart, when it is still at the Lenovo boot screen, shut-off, it will not bring up the "Boot in Safe Mode" option screen because it did not yet enter the windows startup.

It reboots several times during the restoration process.

2) There is an application that allows you to "wrap-up" Windows so that on the next boot it will return to the setup screen. I don't remember exactly what its called... but its useful for IT departments that want to create custom installs but let the end-user configure their user information.

Too complicated.

Anyway, thanks for the hints.

[msb0b]

2) There is an application that allows you to "wrap-up" Windows so that on the next boot it will return to the setup screen

sysprep is the program you're looking for. The OP will probably want to run it with the /generalize option to remove user customizations.

I believe triggering a shut down with a quick press of the power button at the initial setup screen will shutdown the computer without the error screen on next boot.