When you install peppermint os over your other operating system such as windows is there a chance that malware or a virus can be left behind that may affect a network?
Or is it a complete wipe and it is like starting with a new hard drive?
Thanks for the help in advance

If Windows is the only operating system on the hard drive (and the only partition is C:\) then YES telling the Peppermint installer to remove Windows and install Peppermint in its place will be a FULL wipe including the boot sector.

In any case if you're wiping Windows then even if you had a separate D:\ partition and that contained virus ridden Windows executables .. they would have nothing to run on, as they won't be executable in Linux.

Does that answer your question ?

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Thanks

The reason why I asked is because at our public school funds are limited but we are trying to procure more laptops. I was thinking in the mean time we could be reusing old laptops that are donated to the school. Put peppermint os on and it would be good enough for what the students use, web based apps.

But our admin at the school is concerned about used devices accessing our network. So I am trying to find an answer to some of their questions that they have.

Thanks for the heads up about the move.
This does answer my question.
Thank you