Question Reverting back to windows 10 after upgrade

[bhdavis2]

If I allow Microsoft to do the Windows 11 upgrade on my Windows 10 Home laptop I would first do a clone backup of my Windows 10 hard drive onto a Samsung 500 gb SSD.

My question is whether I could then successfully install that clone back hard drive into the laptop if I'm not happy with Windows 11. I think it's a question of whether the Windows 11 upgrade will do something to the BIOS that is Windows 11 specific.

Thanks,
BH

 

[Lafong]

Not sure, but I can't think of why that wouldn't work....

Although I would use imaging rather than a clone to another drive. That would let you continue to use your existing drive rather than having to install the 500 GB drive if you wanted to revert to 10.

I'm on 10, but I thought 11 had some sort of built-in mechanism that would allow reversion to 10...at least for a limited time, like 30 days?

 

[35below0]

No harm in doing a backup, but as long as you upgrade to 11 from the Windows Update, it will back up all the win 10 OS stuff and store it on the drive. This is not an option, the backup will be made like it or not.

So if/when you decide to roll back to 10, you can do it with very easily.

If you choose to stay on 11, you will have an option to delete the backed up 10 stuff. It's around 5-6 Gb.
The option to delete it is somewhere in Windows Update.

I am not aware of any 30 day limit. You can keep the option for as long as it's possible. Maybe some future update to 11 makes it un-possible to go back to 10 but that hasn't happened yet, and honestly i don't see it ever happening. The Win 10 backup image was made to replace your Win 11 once you no longer want it.
Microsoft knows many people are on the fence and want a painless rollback available.

Maybe someone who has rolled back to 10 can share their experience.

Edit - you should look at online advice on how to disable Bing search from your start menu, and how to disable news widgets and other crap that 11 comes with by default.
Of course, it's your decision but it's much cleaner without the junk.

 

[bhdavis2]

Thank you both of you. Clone backup is done and I've just started the 11 download. We'll see what happens.

I knew about the roll back feature but didn't know how reliable it was. If I'm not happy with 11 I'll try that first. I did see somewhere online this AM that the roll back would work for 10 days. Who knows how old that info is though and if it is accurate now or ever was.

Much appreciated,
BH

 

[bhdavis2]

Upgrade completed and all went well. I was trying to resolve some crash and blue screen of death issues and the upgrade solved the problems. A reinstall of Windows 10 had not helped so it was either a clean install of 10 or 11, or a hardware/heat problem. I was pretty sure it was software related so did the upgrade. Pretty risk free with the clone waiting in the background.

Thanks again.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I’m happy with windows 11. Not a lot different than 10 really. I guess I’m a tech so I’m of the mind with operating systems that I’m going to have to support it sooner or later so I might as well start tinkering.