After launch of Windows 10 for public, we have covered a few topics such as upgrading to Windows 10, clean installation of Windows 10, etc. Now lets talk about a different case! Suppose you upgraded your existing Windows 7 or 8.1 OS to Windows 10 but after upgrading, you don't like the new OS or you face some issues with hardware drivers, new features or some of your favorite programs are not working in Windows 10 and you decide to revert back to previous Windows version, then how will you do it?
You may feel that the new Windows 10 is hard for seasoned users like you. There are a lot of changes especially on the user interface aspect, and you wish that you can go back to the old and trusted UI. Or maybe some of your must-have applications and games are not compatible with the new Windows 10. Rather than face crashes every now and then or a total system incompatibility, is there a way back for you? You can also be facing an unexpected data loss after you have upgraded, and wish for your data back. Finally, there could be some settings after you have upgraded that gives you errors, and you just can’t live with it.
This is where a system go back solution is the best solution that you should have before making the upgrade to Windows 10. It will protect your entire Windows 10 upgrade experience against any data loss. It is able to restore your previous operating system, applications and games without having to reinstall each and every single of them. Of course you can downgrade Windows 10 to Windows 7 and perform a system go back to exactly where you were before the moment you upgraded.
The first step is of course to back up any information you currently have on your PC that you want to keep. Changing an operating system is a big thing, and data can often be lost along the way. You can use external hard drives, thumb drives, or some of the various online cloud storage such as OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or Tresorit, that offer lots of space for free. When you’ve safely copied any documents, video, photos, or other important data you need, you’re ready to begin.
If you've added any user accounts since upgrading you'll have to sign out of them and then remove them from the main account before you can downgrade. Naturally, you can only downgrade if you upgraded from Windows 7 or 8.1. If you then did a clean install of Windows 10 you won't see the option to go back. You'll have to use a recovery disc, or reinstall Windows 7 or 8.1 from scratch.
This policy from Microsoft was likely developed to avoid users installing the older OS on a separate system after upgrading to Windows 10, which is a perfectly acceptable thing for a company to do. After all, Microsoft still needs to make money, and if it just lets anyone use those old licenses inappropriately, then it would lose a lot of money from potential OS sales.
As a final check, launch all the programs you use on a regular basis to make sure they work (or reinstall them if they don't) and make sure your documents and other files are present and correct. If not, copy them back off your external drive where you made a backup at the start. You did make a backup, right?