Putting a MAC back to factory settings

[Sgt Bilco]

I have a problem with my 5 year old I-mac. The office database has been corrupted somehow so seems to slow the whole thing up. I've backed the whole thing up so everything is saved.

I've just bought Microsoft office 365 for my macbook air and installed that no problem and can use it on 4 other macs.

It's just occurred to me that if I could somehow remove the old office system for my i-mac and re install Office 365, it would remove that corruption problem. Is this do-able in simple terms?

The other alternate is to put the i-mac back to factory setting and load the new Office 365 onto it and basically start again. Happy to do that if it's a lot easier. Any ideas out there?

 

[RedRick Esq.]

How about using Omni sweeper to delete the applications that you do not want or that are slowing the thing down and then putting the 365 on ?

If you use time machine back ups and reset to factory to then do a restore from backup you will just end up back where you are now

 

[er-minio]

There should be an uninstaller with the application itself.

Otherwise, you can manually delete the app, and then manually remove all the preferences and libraries. Takes 5 minutes, most of which are searching for the files (or a list of paths where the files are stored off some mac support forums).

The other alternate is to put the i-mac back to factory setting and load the new Office 365 onto it and basically start again. Happy to do that if it's a lot easier. Any ideas out there?

Assuming most of this stuff is happening at user level (settings, etc), the quickest thing to do is to create a new user on your mac and run Office 365 from that account. If everything works fine, you can "clean" your main user as explained above and start again.

 

[Millmax]

See below mate.

With your mouse or trackpad, drag the program’s icon from Applications to the Trash.

Depending on the user permissions you have set for yourself, you may need to enter a password to proceed with the uninstallation.

Once the program has been fully moved to the Trash, empty the trash can. Job done!

The the nice thing about Macs. They don’t have a Registry! Instead, the preferences for each program are stored in the Preferences folder in the Library section, which you can find by opening a Finder window and pressing command+shift+g. This opens up the “Go To Folder” box, and then in the box, type /Library/Preferences/.

Each program has what is called a PList (Property List), which is a text file, containing your preferences. Since each file takes up a couple of kilobytes (if that), then there isn’t any real point removing them. But you can if you want to, for the sake of neatness.

 

[Sgt Bilco]

All done now and thanks for your input chaps