W10 to W7

[Berne]

Hi,

Any easy way to rollback to W7 from W10, I just got a new Acer Aspire 3 and there is no DVD.

I do have a USB Patriot 8GB and saw some youtube stuff but this does not seem a goer. I also tried the virtual box but its a little too complex.

All good advice welcome.

Berne

 

[Johan45]

The new machine would have a Win10 license. There is no way to "rolll back" you would have to install Win7 with a valid key

 

[trents]

There are places on the internet that you an download a Windows 7 ISO but as Johan45 explained, you would need a valid product key to install it. Keys are available on ebay but whether on not they are legit is another question. There are also people selling legit Windows 7 media on ebay but how much you'd pay for it is another question.

 

[Alaric]

And a (much) better than even chance there are no W7 drivers for that laptop. Some may cross over from W10 and work, sorta, but that would be luck. I doubt Acer developed drivers for an obsolete OS in new laptop. W7 drivers for W10 "only" hardware can be done with some hardware but that's going to be a DIY build and not a pre-built computer.

 

[Janus67]

Hi,

Any easy way to rollback to W7 from W10, I just got a new Acer Aspire 3 and there is no DVD.

I do have a USB Patriot 8GB and saw some youtube stuff but this does not seem a goer. I also tried the virtual box but its a little too complex.

All good advice welcome.

Berne

Why? 7 is out of support. So it will be full of unpatched holes going forward.

 

[Alaric]

There are people who don't like and won't use W10. Not promoting that, but I understand.

 

[Janus67]

There are people who don't like and won't use W10. Not promoting that, but I understand.

I understand as well, but like it or not, it's important to move on for the safety of ones machine and their network. Move to 8.1, 10, Mac, Linux, or Chromium. Those are the choices at this point

 

[Alaric]

I have no disagreement from a fact based standpoint. I installed 8.1 on my bedroom rig for the very good reasons you stated. And I hate it. Windows 10 Lite. If I can ever get my Media Center hack to produce a fully functional Media Center in Windows 10 I would likely make it my main OS, but I won't like it. Windows 7 just works for me. I like Aero and it's more intuitive for me.

Part of the issue, I'm sure, is I got in to computers (bought my first one) in my 40s. In the space of a year or so I built one and got Windows 7 after breaking XP just to fix it for that year. So since 2010 the only operating systems I've used any appreciable amount of time are XP and 7. (And Vista, but that's just 7 with lousy driver support).

I know the pitfalls, and I regularly recommend that people with new builds just install W10 from the start. Then I go back to my damp cave, build a fire, and fire up my bicycle based generator and bask in the glow of my Windows 7 Pro.

 

[Berne]

Ah sure its all in a days work !

Update: Too much hassle on this OS tweak, Ive opted for the new Google OS Slate of, it takes a little work , but hey it' s such a snappy piece of kit. Many thanks all contributers , stay safe.

Berne

 

[trents]

Is Google Slate OS available to download? I thought it only came with the slate tablets? I do know the open source version of Chrome OS can be downloaded. Or did you mean you bought the Slate tablet?

 

[Sayfield]

Why not do a clean Windows installation?

 

[andy555]

Hi,

Any easy way to rollback to W7 from W10, I just got a new Acer Aspire 3 and there is no DVD.

I do have a USB Patriot 8GB and saw some youtube stuff but this does not seem a goer. I also tried the virtual box but its a little too complex.

All good advice welcome.

Berne

Hi Berne,

To downgrade from W10 to W7 without DVD-ROM, you can create a bootable USB Flash that contains Windows 7 ISO and proceed from there. The basic steps would be:

Step 1: Acquiring W7 ISO file (essentially a Installation DVD in a file) with genuine key. With W7 being EOL, you can find W7 Key for cheap on Ebay or Amazon, you can even grab a broken screen/dead laptop for dirtcheap or free with W7 Sticker at the bottom.

Step 2: Put this ISO file into a USB Flash. There are many softwares that can do this for you. I use Rufus v2.1 but any software will do. You can find plenty of tutorials online.

Step 3: Go to your BIOS (turn on your laptop then repeatedly hit Del/F2/F12) and disable UEFI setting.

Step 4: Back up your data. I can not stress this hard enough. After this this is point of no return, if you happen to format your important files, or you can not boot into Windows any more (BOOTMGR MISSING...) and you have no means to extract data out of it.

Step 5: Turn on your laptop. Instead of booting from HDD/SSD, it will automatically boot from USB FlashDrive containing W7 ISO. Proceed with a clean installation and this will wipe all data on target partition (most probably C:\) then the setup will continue. After several resets then Voila! you have your fresh W7 running on W10 laptop.

You will have difficulties getting official drivers for W7 from manufacturer, especially if it comes with W10-preloaded, but INF driver files can be added manually. Not all features are guaranteed to work, for example Fn Key + Screen Brightness or proprietary key functions. Back then I downgraded several notebooks from W8.1/W10 back to W7 and and they all worked fine but you have to put extra time to find drivers for it (or go Linux).

 

[Berne]

Hi ,
Many thanks Andy and all...Im not really techsavvy and after much trial and tribulation I opted to buy the Google Slate it has the Chrome OS. So much to learn but one day at a time ( that is something we have more of lately ). Anyhow thanks to all.

Regards,

Berne