Windows 10: Rolling Back From Windows 10 To Your Older OS Appears Problematic

This also tends to be poorly understood.

There is a Scheduled Task, called SetupCleanupTask that runs, I think every 5 days after installation. By default, I believe this task deletes your Windows.old (or at least the previous setup files that allow rollback) after 30 days. It does not deactivate your key as some seem to suggest.

 

The biggest problem I've had with Windows 10 since October of last year is how not forthcoming Microsoft has been with information.


This whole "you'll find out when you find out" dance with Microsoft is getting old. The amount of times that questions have been directly asked of Microsoft and have been responded to with a "uhhh, well, ya see, uhhh" answer is maddening.


Microsoft needs to plan these things better, find out what consumers want and what is fair to Microsoft itself, and then make a decision. When that decision is made, it needs to be filtered to everyone within Microsoft. And it needs to be put into clean, everyday language that anyone could understand. We shouldn't need lawyers to make sense of the rabble-rabble coming out of Microsoft.

Microsoft has some serious communication and documentation issues, and quite frankly, this has become all the more apparent since Google has come to the scene and documented the crap out of how to deploy Chrome and Chrome OS properly. It's not 1995, anymore, and IT pros are tired of guessing proper Windows deployment and configuration.

 

And thank you for that, Groze.

Yes it turned out that the first restore attempt screwed my partitions by installing itself on the wrong one.

With your fix, I was able to restore my 8.1 image (which remained activated - whew!) then I applied any outstanding updates, took an up-to-date image, and installed a fresh copy of 10240 over it.

This got rid of a lot of issues I'd been having with my 'beta-riddled' previous setup. Boots faster, runs better, and takes up a heap less disk real-estate. I've now updated and imaged that setup as well, and so all is now copacetic again.

Thanks again.


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Considering Microsoft's stated position on the "one month downgrade issue"...
I have a valid concern As does Tomshardware.
In my situation, prior to Win10 rollout, I had Win7 on one hard drive and a cloned copy (disk image) on another hard drive.
It was the cloned copy I upgraded to Win10, keeping my working copy of Win7 intact.
Now, here is the question...
Due to the fact that Microsoft has given 30 days to decide whether or not I want to keep Win10, what happens if I take longer than 30 days to evaluate Win10 on the separate drive?
Will my active copy of Win7 on the first drive become invalid or de-activated? If that is the case, I'm downgrading immediately!
I'd be interested in finding out everyone else's take on this.

 

First of all, it's not legal to keep your original copy like that and continue to use it. You have a license for a *single* installation of either Windows 7 or Windows 10. You can have one or the other, but not both at the same time installed on the computer. This means, if you want to go back you have to delete Windows 10 and reinstall 7 (or restore it from a backup), and vice versa.

So that is why Microsoft won't tell you how to violate their license.

Second, the only thing that happens after 30 days is that you can no longer roll back to your original version, as a scheduled task deletes your rollback. You are free to delete Windows 10 after 30 days and re-install 7, you just can't roll back to it.

 

Thank you Mystere. I understand what you are saying and I agree.
Perhaps I should have clarified. Win7 is not my main OS...XP is. I use win7 currently only for gaming and not very often.
So basically, my "active" Win7 on the first hard drive is my image backup. The reason why I am "evaluating" Win10 is to decide which one (7 or 10) will become my main OS and I want to take my time to do that and I am entitled to take as much time as I want to do that.
That being said, if Microsoft wants to "force me" to speed up my choice of replacement OS because of some arbitrary 30-day limit, then I will simply delete Win10 and purchase it some other time. My Win7 license is a valid OEM license purchased last year for gaming purchases (BF4).
I just don't want Microsoft to invalidate my Win7 license.

 

They don't. They have never said they will. This is entirely about "rollback". Not reinstallation.

 

That's the clarification I was looking for. Thank you.
I like Win7. It is a very stable gaming platform. Win10 may turn out to be just as stable and have advantages like DX12 going forward. This is something I will have to determine over the next 25 days or so.

 

Are you sure there will be no issues with the W7 validating? Can you post a MS link to verify this? People ask me this all the time and I'm not sure what to tell them.

 

I can be sure aliens won't attack tomorrow either, but are you going to ask for evidence of that as well? MS Has never invalidated keys for any reason other than detecting they have been posted on the internet (ie they suddenly get thousands of activations on the same key).

 

Look, I only ask because I can't find a definitive answer from MS anywhere. I copied the EULA/MSLT of a system I upgraded from 8.1 to 10, and I find paragraph #7 seems to say you can use a downgrade OS for as long as MS support it. But, I was never notified during the upgrade that I had 30 days to "rollback". I only found that out by reading the forums here. Thirty days have not passed yet, and, since this W10 is a whole new ballgame, I was looking for something official, to tell the people who ask me.

7. Downgrade Rights. If you acquired a device from a manufacturer or installer with a Professional version of Windows preinstalled on it, you may use either a Windows 8.1 Pro or Windows 7 Professional version, but only for so long as Microsoft provides support for that earlier version as set forth in (aka.ms/windowslifecycle). This agreement applies to your use of the earlier versions. If the earlier version includes different components, any terms for those components in the agreement that comes with the earlier version apply to your use of such components. Neither the manufacturer or installer, nor Microsoft, is obligated to supply earlier versions to you. You must obtain the earlier version separately, for which you may be charged a fee. At any time, you may replace an earlier version with the version you originally acquired.

 

And that is exactly what I did! I made a Ghost, so I can boot from my recovery disk and go back to Win 7 anytime I want.

 

I didn't think Norton's Ghost worked with windows 7 sp1. Are you using x86(32 bit) or a 64 bit of windows 7?

 

x64. And yes it does. I just verified that by booting from my Ghost recovery disk and I could access my Ghost image.

 

I think some people are confused about the activation key when they really should be talking about the Product ID.
Your activation key is used to install your OS and the Product ID (the one displayed in "System") is the ID given to your PC after installation and subsequent activation by Microsoft.

As an aside...in my on-going saga to evaluate Win10, I just booted into it and my Windows Defender Real Time Protection was off and would not turn on until I rebooted Win10 again...then it returned to normal. Never had a problem with Win7.
So if Microsoft thinks that I'm going to find all the bugs and they are going to address them in the next 25 days, they are nuts... another reason why the 30-day limit to downgrade is grossly unfair and when you think about it, they are cutting their own throat because people are going to realize that 30 days is not enough and just ditch Win10.

90 days Microsoft...give us at least 90 days!