Should I reset my M4 Pro MBP or spend a lot of time fixing a mistake?

[AdamNC]

We had a neighbors son stay with us for 2 weeks while his parents were going through some hard times after a medical crisis. (It was a mistake on many accounts.). I let him use my M4 Pro MBP (512 gig 24 Ram) and agreed to let him put his Steam account and some games on a guest account. BG3, and a couple others. He also put on TG Pro. He was limited to using it 1 hour each night. We ended up after 2 weeks saying it wasn't going to work out. (Long story.). Well the guest account is gone but TG Pro is still on it, my purgeable memory is at 396 gigs, and it is running slow. I told him I would remove everything, he did it anyways. It feels sluggish on start up, and just not running smooth. Not 100% sure what he did. Would it be best to just wipe it out and start fresh or do you have any ideas? Thanks.....

 

[AdamNC]

I have decided to bite the bullet and start over..... AAARRGGG. Lesson learned, do not let anyone use your computer.

 

[giffut]

If you didn´t give him admin rights on his guest user account, you should simply be able to delete his user account and be fine.

If he had admin rights, nuke it and start fresh.

 

[benwiggy]

You never need to erase the whole drive -- the OS volume cannot be altered. "Erase All Content and Settings" is sufficient.

You can always restore a backup from before he arrived.

Never give anyone an admin account. Also -- TG Pro? A Fan controller?

 

[Fishrrman]

Agree with benwiggy.
Use the "Erase all content and settings".

This will put it back to "moment zero" (the moment you first took it out of the box and opened the lid).

Of course, you will need a backup of some kind to restore your personal data.
Or... be willing to "start over" (and that will be completely from scratch -- NOTHING will be saved from previous usage with this option).

 

[AdamNC]

I ended up doing Erase and Reset all settings, then used a back up from the day before he started using it. And it is back up to a beast.