Microsoft offered Windows 10 as free upgrade to all the users running Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1. Once you have upgraded your PC to Windows 10, it gives you one month in which you can downgrade or revert back to your older operating system. For most of the Windows 10 users who upgraded as soon as Windows 10 was released that one month window is already closed. But if you upgraded a little bit later, then perhaps you still have some time left to revert back to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Here is how you can perform a system rollback and downgrade to the older Windows version from Windows 10:
- Press the hotkey Win + I to open the Settings app. Click on the Update and Security category and then select Recovery section from the left side.
- If you are still allowed to revert back to Windows 7 or 8.1, then you will see an option to “Go back to Windows 7” or “Go back to Windows 8.1”. Click on the Get started button under this option to continue.
- It will ask you for a reason to know why you are downgrading. You can choose one of the reasons from the list or type in one reason of your own and click on the Next button to continue.
- It will display some basic information about what happens when you proceed with reverting back to older version of Windows. Basically, it tells you that your personal files will stay intact but you may have to reinstall some of the apps. Click on the Next button to proceed.
- Wait for 30-40 minutes during which your PC might be restarted multiple times. In end, your PC will boot into Windows 7 (or Windows 8.1) and you can continue to use it as before.
Summary: Downgrading from Windows 10 to an earlier version of Windows has been made very easy by Microsoft. You can use the system rollback feature from the Settings app in Windows 10 to revert back to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.