How To Undo a Windows 10 Upgrade - Comments Page 1

I moved from Windows 7 to 10 on an HP laptop and rolled it back because the touchpad quit working. I had to plug in a USB mouse to get the cursor to move.

When trying to resort back to the factory default (so I could reload Windows 7) pressing the "ESC" key during boot-up wouldn't work. I put a Recovery Disk in the CD drive and rebooted to get to the option of restoring factory settings.

I did like Windows 10 for the limited time I used it.

I moved from Windows 7 to 10 on an HP laptop and rolled it back because the touchpad quit working. I had to plug in a USB mouse to get the cursor to move.

When trying to resort back to the factory default (so I could reload Windows 7) pressing the "ESC" key during boot-up wouldn't work. I put a Recovery Disk in the CD drive and rebooted to get to the option of restoring factory settings.

I did like Windows 10 for the limited time I used it.

I upgraded to Windows 10 and came back to 7.
1: After upgrading to 10, I noticed I could'nt remove the pinned files from Excel and when I came back to 7, I can't add pin files to Ms Excel, though it's still working for Winword (Msoffice 2013, don't understand what's happening here.

2: I upgraded a new computer to 10, didn't find the way to import my Favorites from the old computer to Edge

My only complaint (so far) is exactly what I predicted would be the case; namely, legacy programs not working. Specifically, we are WordPerfect users and had WP12.2 loaded and working on Win7 and Win8.1 machines. When the 8.1 upgraded to Win10, WP12 crashed. It wouldn't open files. We also had an older version, WP8.2, which we carried over from WinXP. It absolutely would not open. So, I deleted WP8.2, and reinstalled WP12. In fairness to Win10, WP12 did work after reinstall, but the hassle of it all bugs me.

I found it downgraded my Video Display. Now I can't select a 16.9 setting as in Win8
My AMD/ATI 4550 card now seems to only support 1280. My Acer 23" will support 16.9. NO Update driver from Amd/ATI (yet) So forced to look for a different graphics card to get back to 16.9. Prior to WIN 10 everything was fine! Long Story Short,...I'm not really impressed with 10! I'll wait to upgrade other PC's

So far I like the Windows 10 experience. The only issue I have experienced is 1 the store does not work with my non-terrestrial, satellite, internet, I just have not been able to determine if it is the bandwidth, ≈1Mb/s, the more likely, or the latency ≈750ms. It works fine if I turn on the hot spot on my phone and connect to it 6-12Mbs. I am not too fond of MS choices on sharing everything. But most users share even more on social media.

I am glad the roll back is easy since I want to try Windows 10 on my 5 year old Dell at some point. But not until there has been time for the major bugs to be found and fixed. As a friend I worked with used to say "the cutting edge (of technology) is often the bleeding edge".

My advice, for those lucky enough to still only be considering trying out Win10, is DON'T! Since reverting back (to Win7) I have two primary features that are now buggy and don't work well.

Internet Explorer 11 - can't open more than two or three windows without an error message, resulting in the currently viewed browser window closing & reopening, then again, error message, close window, reopen .... a vicious cycle.

Worse yet, is my Windows Live Mail. Recently received messages (during Win10) are duplicated; error messages when trying to move or delete a message. Even worse, I cannot reply to a message without getting an error message. Also, many times I cannot send a new message without getting an error message.

I think I'm going to have to back up everything and reinstall the OS, programs, etc. Being able to find and repopulate my email program concerns me most. Every so often I think I should move to an Apple computer. This is one of those times.

Anyway, forget Win10. Even if bugs are removed, it's such an obtuse program to use.

After upgrade to Windows 10 my Acer laptop's cursor and pointer was inoperative??

Bob, We all remember your series on backing up the PC. I would think the easiest way to revert is to restore a backup image. I would think most of us made a back up image before installing WIN 10.

only problem I have had with windows 10 is when I shut down. it seems to always restart. then I shut down again and it shuts down. any suggestions. I use a mouse. have a Lenovo pc bought last year with windows 8. upgraded to 8.1.
now 10. Edge is different. don't like favorites set up. I found internet explorer. using it. seems windows 10 improved it as it was always crashing in 8.1. think I'll keep windows 10. I'm sure they'll have some improvement upgrades soon.

I upgraded 1 desktop and 3 laptops. I love Windows 10 but two computers had graphic driver problems and no upgrades available. One I rolled back, it was a snap.

Two experienced a Critical Start Up error that still has not been resolved. One I was able to work around to roll back which it did successfully. The other is now stuck in a broken Windows 10 system unless I do an image restore.

I installed Windows 10 on an old Toshiba netbook. I have no desire to rollback to Windows 7 Starter. The old machine is running faster and better than it ever did before.

I was not impressed with the new OS because it seemed to make everything I wanted to do, so much harder. Now maybe it was because I didn't understand what the new programs can do, or what, but I do know it was a hassel from the getgo. Even the simplest things were hard, my webcam wasn't recognized, nor my camera. I couldn't find my programs such as snip-it, they have one attached to the 10 OS, but there are no instructions that are understandable for the normal person at least. I tried to send some attachments and I was unable to find where they had be moved, so I am back to OS 7, and plan to stay there.

What about watching Blu Ray on Windows 10.
It is good to have the possibility to go back, but I am waiting to see how Corel's WinDVD will work on Windows 10, before installing it.

Thank you once again, Bob Rankin.

Your blog asks our Win10 roll-back experience but you did not mention why you rolled it back and I (for one) certainly would like to hear your reasons and justifications for doing so.

I upgraded from a Windows8.1Pro (x86 aka 32bit) desktop machine to Windows10Pro equivalent and my upgrade experience has been without a hitch. I should mention that this continually hw-updated Intel Core2Duo (E8650) machine has done upgrades to the OS; started from WinXP, to WinVista, to Win7, to Win8/8.1, to Win10. I am forced to use the x86 architecture in this machine because of all the legacy (paid) software that I continually use from years back even within Win10.

My Win10Pro ControlPanel\Programs&Features itemizes 241 registered (non-Microsoft) applications within it, and not including those other applications/utilities that may be of portable variety.
This desktop machine is built around a rack-mount chassis with 8 int/ext storage devices (SS/HDD/DVD), another 6 attached USB devices, 2 NIC cards, an external Audio subsystem, VoIP and other NAS devices.
These are NOT bragging rights but only to be able to paint the canvas as to the complexity of a system that seamlessly was able to be upgraded to Win10Pro with one minor hardware hitch that was rectified via reinstallation of a unique IOCell NDAS drive software.

My only (but major) issue with Win10Pro is the fact that it is way too net-centric and as such, the security and privacy hooks are totally against odd with the way I like using desktop computing devices. Specifically, Since I prefer to not rely on cloud-based activities, I continue to use a 'local account' to log-in. As such, I have been forced to disable Cortana, and will not be able to get the full benefits of voice commands and be fully immersed in the Edge experience. Otherwise, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this upgrade and I fully understand why Microsoft had to acquiesce (in the name of less security/privacy) to try to become more competitive in the market place.

For those who may have second thoughts ('buyer's remorse) about using Win10 upgrade, it may be a better idea to use a cloning/imaging software (Acronis, Macrium, AOMEI, etc.) before the upgrade to Win10. That way, the created archive/image of the previous OS can be reinstalled back on the machine. (see this discussion about such cloning software at http://bit.ly/1Kq9iwr)
For those who will keep Win10 upgrade for the future, it is further advisable to remove the Win10 created "Windows.Old" folder, which will be a destructive delete that can never be reverted back to. (see these 2 topics: http://bit.ly/1HEghwu and/or http://bit.ly/1EltbzC)
Apologies for the length of this input.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks for this long post, some good ideas there! As for my reasons for the rollback, I did mention them in the article:

> My travel laptop was running fine on Windows 10 after upgrading from Windows 8.1 But just for fun, I decided to do a "downgrade" and test out the rollback option.

Upgraded older HP Laptop from 7 to 10; no problem. Then upgraded W8.1 (which I disliked)HP 2 yr old desktop to 10, then newer HP Desktop from 7 to 10. All went smoothly, although the 8.1 upgrade did seem to take longer time but not more than 3 hours. Others were about 2 hours from start to finish and all pretty much on 'autopilot'. I like 10; jury still out on Edge and have had to revert to IE11 due to some features not available in Edge, i.e.: RoboForm functions not automatic in Edge due to "extensions not allowed within browser". No problem with MS Office Home & Student 2010, Outlook 2007, various printers, scanners, etc. Haven't done much with Cortana - I'm a creature of habit and go to same sites regularly. If I need to do a search I generally use either Bing or Google. Just FYI - I'm an older geezer, not an IT tech or anything akin but have been into computers since my TRS-80 with 4k of memory and loading programs with a cassette recorder back in the early 80's. I'm still waiting for the flying cars to make an appearance.

Since upgrading to Windows 10 I've not been able to open Windows Calendar or Windows Mail. Neither is a major issue, since I use Google for both, but it is annoying that they don't work.
The only significant problem is that my Nikon D3100 is not recognized in the Photos App. I can find it listed among the drives on "this computer," but when I open it I get the message "This folder is empty" even though there are photos on the card.
I'll probably not downgrade, but will wait for a fix from Microsoft.

I upgraded and switched back (very easily, 15 min) an hour later, my Dell desktop was extremely slower, [it's one year old w. 8 mb ram] ???
my VLC player never worked on 10 even though that was my default player.
Will I switch back to 10, only when I have to !!!

I downloaded win10 a couple of days ago. Start up was extremely slow, taking over 3 minutes, the sound card no longer worked and I couldn't correct it and I was disappointed at the start menu, I was hoping it would be exactly the same as win 7. However, roll back was very easy, I just used system restore and now everything is back as it was before. I do intend to download win10 in the future, but I'll wait for a bit until all bugs have been ironed out.