How to Restore Your Laptop’s Previous Version of Windows

Digital Literacy For Dummies

If you’ve completely had it with Windows 10, you can downgrade to your laptop’s previous version of Windows. Because Windows 10 is so new, you may encounter problems that will prompt you to do this.

To restore your laptop’s previous version of Windows, follow these steps:

Plug in your laptop.

If you forget this step, you’ll be reminded after Step 6.
Save your stuff and close any open programs.

The laptop must restart to complete the downgrade process.
Press Win+I to start the Settings app.
Choose Update & Security.
On the left side of the window, choose Recovery.
Beneath the heading Go Back to Windows X, click the Get Started button.

What? You don’t see the Go Back to Windows X heading? Then your laptop started out with Windows 10 and you can’t remove it.
Answer the questions about why you’re going back; choose an option.

It’s stilly, but you must choose an option. If you don’t want to let Big Bad Microsoft know why you don’t like Windows 10, choose For Another Reason.
Tap the Next button.
Continue working the steps.

Eventually, your laptop restarts and pops up with the older version of Windows.

Your data and programs aren’t changed by this operation, although some programs may require reinstallation or adjustments due to the downgrade.

About This Article

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.