Downgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 8 ( when your laptop manufacturer does not support Windows 10 or if your system becomes sluggish)
Recently I started facing issue with my Dell 14Z Inspiron Ultrabook. I had upgraded OS from Windows 8 to Windows 10 around 2 months back. After upgrading to Windows 10 I felt the system became slow and started giving various random errors. When I checked with Dell Support they advised me to revert to the OS factory version which was Windows 8 in my case. Thankfully as soon as I bought the laptop I had created DVD backup media to restore the system to factory image in case of failure ( I had created a 4 DVD set using Dell Backup & Recovery software).
I took backup of all my data and software and then I tried to use the DVD media to restore to factory image but there was some issue and the backup would not run, it started giving me Boot error (Error Code- 0xc00000d ).
After lots of troubleshooting I could not fix this error and then reached out to Dell Support and they told me they can send me a USB with Factory Restore media for my laptop ( Fantastic Support! If nothing else one should buy dell laptops for their after sales support. IN my case I did not even have a extended warranty yet they provided dedicated support and even send the USB media without charging me anything) .
Once I received the USB with Dell Backup and Restore media I changed the setting in laptop bios to boot from USB instead of the default boot from disk. The restore failed for the first time because the default setting on my laptop was 'Secured Boot' as pointed by very helpful Dell support. Once I disabled the Secured Boot in my bios I was able to complete the factory restore to Windows 8
After the install I checked the driver and I found couple of drivers needed update (See image below)
Once the drivers were updated the next step was to check for Windows updates. There were around 190+ Windows updates that needed to be installed and once the task was completed the system was completely restored. It has been 2 weeks since I have rolled back my Dell 14Z Ultrabook from Windows 10 to Windows 8 and the laptop is faster and stable. Yesterday I started getting messages to update my OS to Windows 8.1. I did not want to upgrade to 8.1 as Dell has not tested Windows 8.1 on my laptop model ( Frankly there is no harm in upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 as there are few changes and all these changes are to resolve some cosmetic issues present in Windows 8 but my recommendation is check with laptop manufacturer before upgrading Windows OS).
How to stop Windows from forcing you to upgrade to Windows 8.1
Check this useful link to disable automatic upgrade to Windows 8.1
: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-stop-automatic-forced-upgrade-from-windows-8-to-windows-8-1/
I hope this post helps those wop want to rollback from Windows 10 to Windows 8 after the 1 month rollback period is over. I struggled a lot initially but with help of Dell support it was easy to roll back to Windows 8. If you are a Windows user, one thing to note is that if laptop manufacturer does not support Windows 10 then you may think of changing your laptop in near future because Windows will soon stop support for Windows 8 and then you will be stuck with your old laptop. You can of course put the old laptop to some good use. I have a Samsung X05 Pentium Windows XP laptop with 30GB HDD. There is not much you can do with a laptop that has 30 GB HDD but if the screen resolution is good then you can use it for surfing and watching videos. I have put the XP laptop in my kitchen to view cookery videos while I am experimenting with cooking. Good luck!
Recently I started facing issue with my Dell 14Z Inspiron Ultrabook. I had upgraded OS from Windows 8 to Windows 10 around 2 months back. After upgrading to Windows 10 I felt the system became slow and started giving various random errors. When I checked with Dell Support they advised me to revert to the OS factory version which was Windows 8 in my case. Thankfully as soon as I bought the laptop I had created DVD backup media to restore the system to factory image in case of failure ( I had created a 4 DVD set using Dell Backup & Recovery software).
I took backup of all my data and software and then I tried to use the DVD media to restore to factory image but there was some issue and the backup would not run, it started giving me Boot error (Error Code- 0xc00000d ).
After lots of troubleshooting I could not fix this error and then reached out to Dell Support and they told me they can send me a USB with Factory Restore media for my laptop ( Fantastic Support! If nothing else one should buy dell laptops for their after sales support. IN my case I did not even have a extended warranty yet they provided dedicated support and even send the USB media without charging me anything) .
Once I received the USB with Dell Backup and Restore media I changed the setting in laptop bios to boot from USB instead of the default boot from disk. The restore failed for the first time because the default setting on my laptop was 'Secured Boot' as pointed by very helpful Dell support. Once I disabled the Secured Boot in my bios I was able to complete the factory restore to Windows 8
After the install I checked the driver and I found couple of drivers needed update (See image below)
Once the drivers were updated the next step was to check for Windows updates. There were around 190+ Windows updates that needed to be installed and once the task was completed the system was completely restored. It has been 2 weeks since I have rolled back my Dell 14Z Ultrabook from Windows 10 to Windows 8 and the laptop is faster and stable. Yesterday I started getting messages to update my OS to Windows 8.1. I did not want to upgrade to 8.1 as Dell has not tested Windows 8.1 on my laptop model ( Frankly there is no harm in upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 as there are few changes and all these changes are to resolve some cosmetic issues present in Windows 8 but my recommendation is check with laptop manufacturer before upgrading Windows OS).
How to stop Windows from forcing you to upgrade to Windows 8.1
Check this useful link to disable automatic upgrade to Windows 8.1
: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-stop-automatic-forced-upgrade-from-windows-8-to-windows-8-1/
I hope this post helps those wop want to rollback from Windows 10 to Windows 8 after the 1 month rollback period is over. I struggled a lot initially but with help of Dell support it was easy to roll back to Windows 8. If you are a Windows user, one thing to note is that if laptop manufacturer does not support Windows 10 then you may think of changing your laptop in near future because Windows will soon stop support for Windows 8 and then you will be stuck with your old laptop. You can of course put the old laptop to some good use. I have a Samsung X05 Pentium Windows XP laptop with 30GB HDD. There is not much you can do with a laptop that has 30 GB HDD but if the screen resolution is good then you can use it for surfing and watching videos. I have put the XP laptop in my kitchen to view cookery videos while I am experimenting with cooking. Good luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment