Windows 10: Revert to factory condition after installation of WIN 10

No luck I'm afraid.

Thinking of purchasing Recovery Media for the original OS (WIN 7 Home Premium) from Lenovo.

Am I likely to have any problems installing this considering the machine has had WIN 10 on?

Would the original Product Key on the COA still work?

 

You'll need to wipe the drive before or during the installation of Win 7.

If you get the OEM Recovery media from Lenovo you shouldn't even need the key code on the license sticker. 99% of all major manufacturers use a version of Windows that look for their model computers and are Pre activated.

 

You do not need to buy a recovery cd.

You have the COA key, and I gave a link to download an iso earlier. You just extract iso contents to a usb stick using rufus, boot from usb stick, and reinstall it.

You do not say why you are returning. We may be able to help getting Windows 10 working ok if issues.

 

Just a very brief history of what has happened:
This is a friends PC and I was trying to help out.
It had been running WIN 7 but the OS had somehow got corrupted (not sure of exact details)
Instead of doing a factory reset the owner attempted an upgrade to WIN 10
The upgrade failed and would not boot
This was when I attempted to help without much success.
Tried all of the normal routes to revert to WIN 7 without success
In the hope that the owners upgrade attempt to WIN 10 had registered WIN 10 successfully (even though not working) I attempted a clean install of the relevant WIN 10.
WIN 10 now running perfectly but of course not registered so only have limited days trial before needing to purchase a license.
I was hoping to thus be able to use the factory recovery partition to get back to WIN 7 but as per previous history in this thread have been unsuccessful.
The cheapest way to now get WIN 10 seems to be to buy a recover CD at GBP18.20 and then upgrade to WIN 10

Regarding the links you gave to download WIN 7 I was unsure of how exactly to use them or if they would be downloads with lots of unwanted free software packaged in with them that would then be difficult to remove from the PC as I assume these are not actually downloads from MS.

What is rufus and how exactly do I use the download. Sorry but not totally familiar with this.

 

Hold your horses.

You never said you wanted to go back to Windows 10!!!

You do not need to go back to Windows 7 to activate Windows 10.

All you need to do to activate Windows 10, is to enter the windows 7 key in the activation menu

settings, update and security, activation, change your product key.

This assumes you are running new Windows 10 version 10586, not older version 10240.

Open a command prompt, and top line will say 10240 (old) or 10586 (new).

If it says 10240, then you will need to reinstall latest version first.

So what version of Windows 10 do you have?

 

Check Option 2 here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Edit: he will need to create windows 10 stick if using 10240 of course.

 

Thank you but now I am totally confused.

My understanding was that the only way of getting the free upgrade to the applicable version of WIN 10 (from WIN 7) was to use the MS process of doing an upgrade. Once you have a successful install by upgrade you can then do a clean install of WIN 10.

Has this changed then?

 

You can do a clean install for free if you created a Win 10 install disc/usb stick. The activation of 10 is tied to the hardware in the system it was upgraded from 7 or 8.1.

 

This was changed with the November update (version 10586). You can now clean install and activate using old key.

Check your version as I said above, and let us know.

 

Thank you for this help. The build is 10240 and it is also Windows 10 Pro when it should be Windows 10 Home going on the basis that the old Windows 7 was Home Premium.

So how do I install the latest build of Windows 10 Home and the latest build bearing in mind Windows 10 pro is currently on the machine.

 

Windows 10

Scroll down to the download tool blue box. Download and run the Media Creation Tool. Insert a USB drive at least 8gb and let the media creation tool create the Windows 10 USB.

WARNING: The hard drive will get erased below.

Boot the computer from the USB that the media creation tool creates. Select 32 or 64 bit, probably 64 bit. If it asks for a product key click I don't have a product key. Select home version. Install now. Then select custom install. Delete all the partitions on the hard drive and install Windows 10 to the unallocated space. (some of these choices might be out of order). When it asks for product key, click skip or do this later. Wait until Windows 10 Home gets all the way installed. Then go to settings, update and security, activation, change product key, enter the Windows 7 product key there.

 

Create a usb installation stick using this link, boot from it, select custom install, select home version, and do not enter any keys.
Recommend you delete all partitions when at the install page.

Windows 10

Edit: NavyLCDR just answered before me. Follow his guide. You may not need to enter Windows key.

 

Hey Cereberus

I've been looking for this forever!! Ty

 

Thank you all so much. Everything has worked perfectly and activated / registered using the original WIN 7 product key on the COA.