I bought my old work laptop when i left my last company. Win 7, X64. I want to remove the domain user but since I have continued using that login for nearly a year, I am wondering about the best way to remove the domain user, keep my files and settings and go on about life. Thanks in advance.

Best to backup your files and clean load. Although you purchased the laptop from your old company, the license still probably belongs to them.

Hi there, Im assuming as far as the machine in concerned that its still joined to your old work domain. I'm also hoping your domain user account has local admin rights on the machine. My Recommendation would be to first copy & backup your domain user account (The profile folder will be found in C:\Users\ - hopefully you can copy the important folders such as documents, desktop etc to a memory stick or external hard disk). You may even want to consider a complete windows backup before doing too much more. Once youre happy you have backed up all your critical data, you can create yourself a local user account on the machine (go into control panel -> user accounts -> manager user accounts and then click Add - make sure you add your new local user to the local administrators group!!) Once thats done, you can then take the machine off the domain. To do so, click Start -> Right click computer -> properties - > advanced system settings -> computer name - > change. From here you can change member of option to workgroup. Doesnt really matter what you call the workgroup name. If you get prompted for user credentials at this stage, you should be able to leave it blank and click ok. Once done, you can then reboot your computer, logon with your newly created local user and copy your files and folders for your profile backup to the new appropriate locations. Hope this information helps. Best regards, Jon.