How to change software on a laptop?

Question

Software and Internet Services

how can I change the software (software) on a laptop so that it completely becomes like a different computer?

Answer 1

Reinstalling the system is the simplest and most stupid solution, make a backup copy of your data (if you don’t understand what’s best, save everything, there are a million programs including built-in tools, of course, on another disk / flash drive, away from the laptop), then reset to factory settings ( instructions on the manufacturer's website, usually on laptops this is generally done in a couple of buttons, in extreme cases you will have to download the image from the laptop manufacturer's website). Of course, all your necessary programs will have to be reinstalled.
If you need the ability to return to a previous configuration, you can try deploying the backup on a second disk partition, or even a second disk if the laptop allows it. If this is a second physical disk, the choice can be made directly from the BIOS (for example, the F11 / F12 button immediately after switching on), if the second partition is on the disk, then you will need to edit boot.ini on the hidden boot partition. Not all backup programs can do restoration of a working system on another partition, for example, from popular paid ones - acronis, from free open ones, I recommend clonezilla. Remember, windows requires about 32-50 gigabytes on the disk just to work itself.
If you need to run the program, but so that it thinks it is running on another computer, then you can use sandbox programs (there are some nuances, it all depends on the program) or install the operating system in a virtual computer. Free virtualbox, kvm/qemu or now Microsoft's virtualpc. The virtual machine stores the disk in a file, allows you to make snapshots (freezing the state of the disk while saving changes, and you can do it in cascade, in general, a powerful system), which allows you to very flexibly manipulate the programs you run, not to mention the fact that the virtual machine in 1 copy is transferred from one computer to another. Among the shortcomings are high resource requirements, especially RAM and limited support for video cards, or rather video accelerators, i.e. games may not work at maximum performance or even fail. Another drawback is that a license for the operating system inside the virtual machine will need to be purchased additionally.
If you just need different program settings, you can use the regular mechanism of user profiles. Those. you create a user account (with your name and password, I recommend only English letters and numbers in the name) when you turn on the computer, choose under whom you log in, and you have your own desktop settings, icons (depending on where it was created, they can be either general or individual), program settings, etc. It is also possible to set file access rights from one account to another. This is a regular method is offered for those cases when several people use the computer. By the way, windows allows you to run applications under any user profile without restarting the computer (right button with a shift on the shortcut, the item will appear - run as another user), which is sometimes very convenient. It is clear that usually programs are installed and available immediately to all users in the system, but there are exceptions if applications are installed in a user profile, usually such programs do not require administrator rights to install or portable versions.
Some games (or rather, game guard programs that protect against cheats) and programs try to prevent users from such tricks, especially the simultaneous launch of one game in two windows, in general, everything is very individual.

Answer 2

Call a friend who fumbles on computers.