How do I downgrade Windows Eleven to Windows Ten?
Hi, everyone.
Leo Notenboom here for askleo.com. Here's the question I get.
I get it in many, many different forms.
"I don't like it. Windows Eleven.
I want to go back. Back to Windows Ten.
How?"
The answer to this question is both easy and complicated.
It depends on how quickly you make the decision.
If you make it quickly enough, piece of cake.
It's built in.
If you wait a little too long, then things get complicated really quick.
Let's switch over to Windows Eleven here,
and I'll show you exactly what you may or may not have available to you.
So I'm running Windows Eleven here.
I'm going to go ahead and fire up the Settings app,
and I'm going to scroll down here in the default system tab to down to Recovery.
And there you'll see this thing called Go Back.
Now, in my case, this option is no longer available on this PC.
That's because it's been more than ten days.
In other words, Windows Eleven includes
a built in rollback to Windows Ten if two conditions are met.
One, this machine was upgraded from Windows Ten to Windows Eleven,
and it was done within the last ten days if either of those aren't true.
In other words, this was a clean install
of Windows Eleven, had nothing to do with an upgrade,
or it's been longer than ten days since the upgrade happened.
This option is not available.
As you can see my case, it's not available.
I can't go back to Windows Ten, even though I originally upgraded this
particular machine from Windows Ten to Windows Eleven.
So my recommendation is if you can make your decision quickly.
And I say that because this button being able to click Go Back is probably
the single easiest thing that you could possibly do.
It'll roll back your machine to Windows Ten.
It should keep all of your applications,
all of your data, all the good stuff that you want kept.
So what if it's not available to you?
What if you can't go back?
What if it's been longer than ten days, which I suspect is the common situation?
Well, before we take a look at our options, I want you to do something.
It's very important that you do this.
Now back up.
And by that I mean take a full system
image backup of your machine so that no matter what we do next,
as you'll see in a moment, these are going to be pretty significant steps.
No matter what we do, no matter what happens, you won't lose any data.
And in fact, worst case, you could come back to Windows Eleven.
But the point here is that we want to back up absolutely everything on your machine
so that we don't lose anything on your machine.
You'll see why
the first option you have available to you, if you've prepared,
is to roll back to a backup image you had taken before installing Windows Eleven.
In other words, hopefully you're taking regular image backups.
In fact, ideally you're taking regular image backups of some sort every day.
All this rollback really means for you then is that you would boot from your
backup Software's recovery media and restore a backup image that was taken
immediately prior to the upgrade to Windows Eleven.
Boom, your machine is back to that point in time.
Now, the reason backing up the Windows Eleven machine before you do
this rollback is important is because chances are you've changed things.
Chances are you've made changes to your data, to your files,
to whatever you want to, then recover that information
from the backup that you made of Windows Eleven before you rolled back.
That's probably the easiest solution of all.
If you don't have the go back option
available, go back yourself by using your own image backup.
What if you don't have a backup?
Well, you're going to regret not having a backup
because really the only way to roll back from Windows Eleven to Windows Ten
if you don't have the go back option in Windows settings and you don't have
an image backup that you can go back to reformat, reinstall Windows Ten
from scratch, reinstall all your applications,
and then recover your data from the backup image we took of Windows Eleven or
wherever other convenient place there might be.
Yes, that's painful, and that's one of the reasons that I
continually harp on backing up, especially before major changes like
a Windows upgrade from going from Windows Ten to Windows Eleven.
That's a perfect time to protect yourself
from this kind of a scenario.
Now, my honest recommendation, especially if you find yourself
in a situation where you don't have the go back option in Windows and you don't have
a backup that you feel comfortable restoring.
Give Windows Eleven a chance.
Keep using Windows Eleven if you can stand it at all.
And I say that because, well,
by definition it's going to last longer than Windows Ten.
Windows Ten is going to be around for multiple years.
Still, don't get me wrong, but if you're going to be stuck
with something, let's stick with Windows Eleven because
eventually you're going to be going to it anyway.
Hopefully they'll approve it.
Hopefully they'll address whatever it is
that is causing you to want to go back to Windows Ten.
But keeping Windows Eleven running Windows Eleven is your safest long term solution.
But barring that, you have three options.
The go back button if it's available, a backup image of Windows Ten if it's
available, and if they're not reformat and reinstall from scratch.
Hope that helps.
Hope that gets you a little bit of idea of what you're up against or updates.
For comments for related links and more, visit
askleo.com/143948
I'm Leo Notenboom.
This is Ask Leo.com.Thanks for watching.