Windows 10: What You Need to Know

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I know this is a dumb question, but to install Win 7, and remove Win 10, I have to....reformat the c drive first? If not, will installing Win 7 affect my hard drive contents and programs?

Even though it's a true upgrade, there is no upgrade path from Windows 10 to Windows 7. Also the different boot systems, UEFI vs BIOS means that the drive is formatted differently. That means at the very least that your partitions have to be resized for the introduction of the BIOS dependent Master Boot Record (MBR) on your boot disk.

But even if you did that you would lose your programs and data on installation. So first, download Belarc Advisor and run it, printing out its entire output. Belarc gives you a complete inventory of hardware and software on your machine. This will give you all the software on your machine along with any software licenses and authorization keys. Then you get an alphabetical list of every piece of installed software.

Secondly, locate all your data and back it up. I always make a total disk image, so if I forget some data hidden away in an unexpected place I can copy it back later.

Thirdly you'll have to get rid of UEFI and reinstitute the BIOS routines in your computer. UEFI is a Microsoft scheme to make it as difficult as possible to use competitive operating systems, including their own Windows 7.

Then you want to do a clean install of Windows 7, install all your software (you have a great checklist, thanks to Belarc, so you don't miss any). Finally, copy all your data back into the right places in your freshly upgraded Windows 7 system.

It's fairly complicated but isn't difficult. And the result will be that your operating system will serve your needs instead serving you for dinner. The Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" said all you need to know about Windows 10.