Windows 10: Question About Going From Windows 10 Back to Windows 7

Someone said that if you take Microsoft up on their free Windows 10 offer, and then decide to go back to Windows 7, you cannot, because the process of getting Windows 10 will invalidate your Windows 7 key. Is this true?

Jim

:)

 

Going Back to Windows 8.1 (Question about Windows 10)

Hi,

Sorry for the delay.

Yes, you can still upgrade it to Windows 10.

As you have said after upgrading to Windows 10, your computer became very slow. This could be an issue with the driver. You can try updating the driver and check.

How to: Install and Update drivers in Windows 10

Get back to us for further assistance regarding this issue.

 

Going Back to Windows 8.1 (Question about Windows 10)

My computer has been really lagging and slow since I upgraded to Windows 10 so I was wanted to back to Windows 8.1. I know how to do that. But my question is: can I still go back to Windows 10 after I revert to Windows 8? I'm hoping that if I wait a while
longer Windows 10 won't be so buggy. I know I can still buy it, but is it possible I'll still have my free reservation? Because I really like Windows 10, but at the moment I can hardly do anything on my laptop because it's being so slow!

 

Nobody's sure yet. Therefore, if you are thinking you mite want to go back to Windows 7, don't reserve the upgrade yet. Wait until post-release to see what happens.

 

Thanks, my friend. I just cancelled my reservation until I hear more.

 

It's highly unlikely that your key would be invalidated. After all, what if the upgrade didn't work? You would need to be able to go back. It's just not logical to even believe MS would do that.

 

MS mite want everyone on Win10. Plus, they don't want people selling their old keys on ebay and such. If that happened, nobody would buy Windows until 7 reached EOL

 

Microsoft monitors Ebay for that sort of thing, and they get those auctions canceled.

Regardless, this is no different than any other situation. When Windows 8 came out for $40 upgrade, people weren't selling their Windows 7 licenses on ebay... or Vista before that, or XP before that...

 

Touche.

 

Hi there

Just IMAGE your system (Acronis etc) - BEFORE applying for the W10 update.

Then You've no problems in ANY scenario on RESTORE -- as your W7 installation would be exactly as before you wanted the upgrade -- no probs.

Cheers
jimbo

 

*Ditto

 

*Thumbs

 

Use windows backup to create a system image

 

Jumping right to the head of the line......

Haven't you ever heard of doing backups? The number of FREE backup programs floating around out there just goes on and on.

As I just stated in another thread, before I accept the Windows 10 upgrade, I'm going to clone my main 1TB HD to a secondary 1TB HD. So I'll have a working copy of my old OS that I can always go back to, if I don't like Win-10.

I strongly suggest that everyone thinking about getting the upgrade to Windows 10, do a full backup of their existing OS, before installing the upgrade.

Good Luck!
*Cool

 

That's what I'd do as well if I decide to go with the free upgrade.

I have a couple of questions about this, to see if I have this understood correctly.

I have a WIn 7x64 OEM version Desktop tower built (2010, genuine/activated) with an Asus BIOS (not UEFI) MoBo.

I Clone periodically as well as Image. I use Cloning for my short-term HDD backups since I have spare HDD's and SATA Hot-Swap Racks installed in the Desktop tower.

If I Clone my Win 7 Source/OS HDD (referred to as "Win 7 HDD" here) to a target HDD, referred to as "HDD #2" (identical mfg and size HDD as my Source HDD) before upgrading to the free Win 10 OS and then install HDD #2 into my PC and run the free upgrade tool installing Win 10 over Win 7 (now referred to as my Win 10 HDD), will I be able to swap back and forth from Win 7 and 10 on my Desktop PC?

For example, if I want to run Win 10 for a couple of days on my "Win 10 HDD", can I then shut down the tower, remove my Win 10 HDD and install my Win 7 HDD and run Win 7 as normal?

Can I then swap back in a couple of days to my Win 10 HDD? If so, is there a limit to how often this could be done?

I guess I'm wanting to verify that the OEM "married to the MoBo" part of OEM versions won't be an issue with switching between Win 7 & Win 10 on 2 separate HDD's.


The other question I have is this:

If I understand it correctly, with Win 7, the "marriage" check is looking at the MoBo Serial # as the Win 7 HDD boots up, and not looking at a hard-coded CMOS chip/BIOS Windows activation code.

With UEFI Secure Boot, the Win activation key is stored in the UEFI MoBo firmware (CMOS/BIOS chip, etc).

Is that correct?

As I post this, I think member TechnoMage may have answered my first question in this thread in post #10:

Exactly what is MS trying to say when they offer me Win 10?

I just read TechnoMage's post #12 in this thread as I post this one. It sounds like I'll have the "swap" option with my Desktop PC.