Scrapping Win 10 and Reinstaling Win 8.1, Maybe ??

leon · #1 13-03-2018, 10:20 AM

Hi Guys.

Alice has Win 10 on her Laptop, it came this way when we bought it about 12 months ago.

Anyway she dose not really like it very much and it dose cause her some grief, so is it possible to install Win 8.1 as a clean install, I do have the Win 8.1 Disc and necessary activation numbers etc.

So basically we want her Laptop running Win 8.1 and scrap Win 10 altogether, is this possible.

Thank You in advance.

Leon

billdan (Bill) · #2 13-03-2018, 10:45 AM

This could be complicated Leon, do you have a set of drivers for the laptop that are Win 8 compatible? i.e main board, dvd, graphics, usb etc.

Has that Win 8 disk and serial number been used on a previous computer?

Microsoft may refuse to activate the computer if that serial number has been activated before. Usually means a phone call to Microsoft and explain to them what you are doing.

Your best bet would be to take the laptop to a computer repair shop and ask them to do it, they have the experience and have probably been down this path before.

Cheers
Bill

leon · #3 13-03-2018, 11:03 AM

Thanks Bill, if that is the case maybe I had better leave well alone,

I thought it would be just a delete and reinstall.

Leon

RickS (Rick) · #4 13-03-2018, 11:06 AM

Are you sure she's going to like Windows 8.1 better than Windows 10? I could understand wanting to go back to Win 7, but Win 8 has most of the ugly stuff that's in Win 10 without any of the redeeming features... not that there are many

leon · #5 13-03-2018, 11:39 AM

Well Rick, she uses my Desktop and it runs Win 8.1 and she is OK with that, I think she would even like to go back to XP, as this is what she had and them i bought her a Laptop with Win already installed.

So you see, it is my fault, LOL

Leon

doppler (Rick) · #6 13-03-2018, 11:48 AM

I use a virtual machine, it lets you run any operating system you want on your existing computer. You just need your original installation disks and serial no's. You then have to install all your programs as you would on a separate computer. I have win xp on my win8 laptop. I installed win7 on my daughters new win10 laptop, but after I installed widows shell ( http://www.classicshell.net/ ) and set the interface as win7 she doesn't mind using win10 now.

https://www.vmware.com/au/products/w...valuation.html

RickS (Rick) · #7 13-03-2018, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leon

Well Rick, she uses my Desktop and it runs Win 8.1 and she is OK with that, I think she would even like to go back to XP, as this is what she had and them i bought her a Laptop with Win already installed.

So you see, it is my fault, LOL

Fair enough, Leon. You could try installing Ubuntu Linux and see if she notices

LewisM · #8 13-03-2018, 01:20 PM

I went back from Win 10 to Win 7 on my imaging laptop.

To say I had to find - mainly deprecated - drivers was an understatement - from wireless and network adaptors, USB controllers, video, motherboard (thank goodness for Intel's software to find the right things!). I had to email ASUS about a couple drivers that were not even deprecated but NOT available (which they kindly emailed to me).

Win 8.1...you couldn't pay me to use it! Go to 7 if anything Leon!

I actually like Win10 myself (after you remove/disable a crapload of macros, useless apps etc - easy to do) - from a work standpoint - but do greatly prefer Win 7 for astro applications.

leon · #9 13-03-2018, 04:26 PM

Thanks Lewis, it all sounds to messy for me, might just leave it were it is, or we could always resurrect her old XP that is sitting at home in storage at the moment.

We should be back in Vic by about mid December

Leon

doppler (Rick) · #10 13-03-2018, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LewisM

I went back from Win 10 to Win 7 on my imaging laptop.

To say I had to find - mainly deprecated - drivers was an understatement - from wireless and network adaptors, USB controllers, video, motherboard (thank goodness for Intel's software to find the right things!). I had to email ASUS about a couple drivers that were not even deprecated but NOT available (which they kindly emailed to me).

I just did a Win7 install on a win10 acer laptop and everything worked except the graphics card was in generic mode, the only driver that I could find that would work with the later graphics card was in 64bit, so a 64 bit version of win7 would be best for software comparability with newer computers.