Windows 10: Reverting to Windows 7 for Dell Laptop

I have a Dell Latitude E6520 which came with Win 7 Pro OA installed. I upgraded to Windows 10 when prompted to do so by the Windows pop-up last Autumn.


It worked pretty well for a while but there are ongoing issues with sound and with iTunes and I need these for my work so I would like to just go back to Win 7, even though more than 1 month has passed.


I tried to download the Win 7 iso to help do this, but when I tried from the Windows iso site (at Windows 7) I got the error message "The product key you've entered appears to be for software which was pre-installed by the device manufacturer. Please contact the device manufacturer for software recovery options."

I did contact Dell support but they say I would have to buy a Win7 CD from them at some cost.

Is this really necessary? I just want to revert to Win 7.


Regards
Dev

:)

 

Why is there no official fix for error 651 connecting to internet when installing Windows 10

I have a Dell E6400 laptop and had to revert Windows 10 back to Windows 7 because there is no fix for this error. Dell is not providing an updated driver for older laptops and has not tested older laptops with Windows 10. This will mean this error will essentially
prevent certain laptop from getting on the Internet. What good is the Windows 10 upgrade if the Internet is not available?

Is Microsoft going to provide a generic driver to address this problem on older laptops?

 

Internet connection

I have a Dell E6400 laptop and had to revert Windows 10 back to Windows 7 because there is no fix for this error. Dell is not providing an updated driver for older laptops and has not tested older laptops with Windows 10. This will mean this error will essentially
prevent certain laptop from getting on the Internet. What good is the Windows 10 upgrade if the Internet is not available?

Is Microsoft going to provide a generic driver to address this problem on older laptops?

 

Hello Dev and welcome to Ten Forums!

The response you got from Dell is disappointing. A factory installed OS usually has a special partition reserved for reinstallation of the OS. If this is still present ( and there is no reason why it should not be) you ought be able to get back to where you were using a recovery disk or some other procedure that Dell should be able to provide.

Disk Management (right click on your start button) should show what partitions you have on the hard disk.

 

You have already found that out and I am here just to elaborate to you and to anyone who come across with this thread..........................

The link to install Win 7 ISO file is good ONLY for users who have the RETAIL versions of Win 7.
Pre-install Win 7 are excluded. That is why Devaraj's product key was rejected.

 

Have you thought about doing a clean install of Windows 10? It does often clear any issues people have. Going from Windows 7 to 10 has caused more issues than going from Windows 8.

 

Thank you! Well, Dell Support did mention about the partition but they said I would have needed to have made a recovery disk or something similar prior to upgrading to Win10, something I didn't do.

I looked at Disk Management, as you suggested, and there does seem to be 100Mb allocated to System Reserved. Can I make use of this?

Dev

 

I did think of that, thanks. I actually did that with a different laptop I had and it did clear a lot but the mic and sound issues still remained and I haven't had much luck with that. So, I'd kind of developed the idea that it would be better to just go right back to Win7, which did do everything I needed, and didn't let me down at crucial times.

 

I am writing from a 6520 and I have 0 ZERO issues with it on 10. I would suggest a few things.

Get the newest BIOS
Dell Latitude E6520 System BIOS Driver Details | Dell US


Do a clean install and use this to update your drivers.
http://snappy-driver-installer.sourc...t/en/index.php
I have sold 3 of these to customers in the last month with no issues.

As big and bulky this model is I love the quality of this laptop.

 

Good to hear from someone with the same laptop! Can I ask... do you use the Windows version of iTunes? I need this for my work and it is now regularly having dramas. I did use the Dell support site to do upgrades but these have not thus far helped.

 

Hi Dev,

Without your W7 recovery disk you are probably going to be stuck. The DELL recovery partition does not always have all the system files necessary to reinstall W7 although sometimes it they were known to put a system image there but this would be rather large (around 4GB). The System partition you referred to is more likely to be the one W10 installed. A recovery partition would be larger and probably called recovery or reserved.

I also support the other posters who have said a clean install of W10 can be beneficial. I recently upgraded an old DELL latitude D630 which DELL does not even support for W10 and this has clean installed beautifully with W10 64bit after I did a BIOS upgrade and I have to say it is running better than ever it did on XP.

 

I personally do not use "I" anything but I think there would be more complaints about I Tunes and 10 around the web.

 

Just out of curiosity, what would Dell charge for the DVD?

It may be the best way to go back, considering the circumstances.

A few years ago, I followed an online recipe to install XP on a laptop with an SLI BIOS code. I suppose that something similar may exist for newer versions of Windows, with newer bulk licensing schemes.

 

OK, thanks. I'm heartened by the fact that you've used the same laptop with Win10. I think i'll go for a new Win10 install and then take it from there. I'll check out for Dell system upgrades after reinstalling.

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

You can get iso from here. If you have an adblocker, turn it off to support the guy providing a great service. These isos are legit ie no malware.