Windows 10: Downgrade to Windows 7 (NOT from PC Settings)

In my experience the search function is nothing worse than in Windows 8.1.

Adverts in the start menu can be disabled through Settings > System > Notifications & Actions > disable Show tipps for Windows.

As for the start menu and the task bar, you can use Classic Shell to easily customize both. In fact, if you ask me, using Classic Shell in fact is a necessity, but not because of the color (or do you mean the transparency?) of the task bar, but because of the badness of the start menu of Windows 8. I now got used to the Classic Shell one, it is really good and I don't want to exchange it against this stupid Windows 10 one.

 

No thanks, no interest at all in doing that. I don't like dark themes and most of the Deviant Art ones I've seen are dark or flashy. I do almost no visual tweaking. Just not my style but now I understand where you're coming from, thanks for the response.

 

I meant about custom themes (use with UXPatcher or MicroLock will not allow those) and WindowBlinds skins. Pictures show the guy is running 7/8 but his taskbar is different (Not by color, it's texture). But this is not able to occur on 10. Just try those for once and see what I mean.

 

You know, WindowBlinds with a Windows XP Luna style skin is a great way to see what I mean too.

 

There is a possibility to get some of them back by backing up all of your programs and Program Data with Macrium Reflect. Now I use the paid version and you can explore the backup. It creates a copy of what you backed up in a virtual drive. From that VD, you can save what you want to a hard drive. I have no Idea if this will work with the free version. I know it does with the paid as I did it. May be worth a try.

 

Most games can work from a backup without reinstalling them. Copy the game's folder and then put it back in Program Files or Program Files (x86) (depending on where you took it from). When you run the executable it will probably ask for the game DVD-ROM to check it is genuine, then run without any problem. No need to reinstall. This is true for games that are fully installed (not typical or whatever limited installation, only full). So at least you can save the trouble of reinstalling most games. Copy them back and if one or two do not run directly, you can reinstall them on top.

 

NOT directly. But there MIGHT be a way of doing this indirectly using LapLink PC Mover Pro.

Laplink has updated their PC Mover suite to NOW allow you to mount an image of your prior OS and reinstall the applications from that Image! Really! Of course, they SELL a utility that will create an image for you -- but you can accomplish the same using the free version of Macrium Reflect. Simply install that, create an image backup to an external drive or a large capacity USB stick.

After you do a clean install to get your previous OS back, then install PC Mover Pro, attach the external drive/USB stick containing the image backup, point PC Mover Pro to that backup, and you should now be able to reinstall those applications.

Please note that I have NOT tried this, as I bought the software to experiment with upgrading my favorite laptop to Win10, but have not had to time to test this out.