Windows 10: Backrolling to previous version failed

Hi,

after the 2004 update my pc has been lagging constantly like every second time I turned it on, so i did the usual troubleshooting (checking drivers, antivirus programs, the internet etc.). Sadly nothing seemed to work so I decided to roll back my Windows version. It failed.

Now I'm unable to start windows again, even though it failed shutting down, not the actual process of rolling back. Every time I start my pc it just opens a (I don't know the exact name) debugging state with seemingly nothing working to bring even just my laggy windows back execpt for maybe a complete reset (which I didn't do yet).

I'm currently running Ubuntu Linux off a USB stick in order to save my most important documents and stuff, but I would really appreciate help getting windows to work again, hopefully without having to reset it.

submitted by /u/Sounder_is_on
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:)

 

Deleting previous versions of Windows 10 fails

I am trying to delete C:\Windows.old. I tried this: How to Delete an Old Windows Folder from Windows 10 but the option isn't listed. Then I tried this: Delete Your Previous Version of Windows, where there is the option to delete the previous versions but it doesn't work. I also tried this: How to Delete an Old Windows Folder Without Using a Disk using the command line but nothing again (it says access denied at step 5)... any other way?

 

Cannot go back to previous version of windows

I'm currently facing the issue that I can't restore the my previous installation of Windows. I did the following things:

• Try to "repair-install" Windows on top of Windows using the Media Creation Tool due to a few oddities I noticed. This failed due to the error "An unknown command-line option [/DynamicUpdate] was specified".
  
• Made an ISO using the Media Creation Tool and used that to "repair-install" Windows, or so I thought - apparently, doing it this way removes all your data and apps... (this is where it all started)
  
• Tried to go back to the previous version using the Settings app - no luck here, as the button was simply missing
  
• Made a image of the hard drive just so I can't mess up any more things
  
• Copy the contents of the Windows.old folder manually to their previous place (using robocopy to ensure that all attributes and permissions were copied properly) - This mostly worked, as in I got back into Windows and the data were where they should be, but I couldn't start most UWP apps or the start menu, so something must've gone wrong. (It is possible that I forgot to delete a folder before copying the old versions, but I didn't try this again)
  
• Convert the drive to GPT (previously MBR) - this was done because I noticed a few minor issues trying to boot in UEFI mode during the previous steps
  
• Reinstall Windows using a newly created installer USB stick
  
• Copy the Windows.old folder from the drive image onto the drive (again using robocopy)
  
• Try to roll back using the recovery mode of the installer USB - this fails with the error "We ran into a problem and won't be able to take you back to the previous version of Windows. Try resetting your PC instead" (which I obviously don't want to/already did) - there's no error code
  
• Rolling back from within Windows is still not possible
  

Any suggestions on how I could fix the problem? Where does the "We ran into a problem..." error come from?

 

reverting to previous build/version

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

I would appreciate if you could answer few questions to narrow down the issue.

• When the computer did froze? Is it when you tried to roll back?
• Did you receive any error message?

I suggest you to remove all the external devices plugged in to the computer and check if it helps to resolve the issue. If the issue persists, please restart the computer and check whether it rolled back or not. If it loads Windows 10,
I suggest you to download the latest ISO of Windows 10 and perform automatic repair.

Download Windows 10

Steps to perform repair:

a) Insert the installation DVD or USB
and boot Windows 8 from it.

b) In the ‘Windows setup’ page select the language to install’, ‘Time and currency format’ and the ‘keyboard or input method’ and click on ‘next’.

c) Click on ‘Repair your computer’ and select ‘Troubleshoot’.

d) Click on ‘Advanced options’ and select ‘Automatic Repair’ and select the operating system.


If you really would like to rollback, I suggest you to refer the below article on How to go back to the previous operating system (Windows 7/8.1) from Windows 10.

How to recover a previous build(s) or your original version of Windows using the Recovery or Rollback feature - Revised July 23rd, 2015

How to recover a previous build(s) or your original version of Windows using the Recovery or Rollback feature - Revised July 22nd, 2018

Hope the information helps. Let us know if you need further assistance. We will be happy

to help.

Thank you.