Windows 10 is proven to be a great operating system right from the beginning, only within a month Microsoft is reporting over 75 million installations around the world. However, because the operating system is being offer as a service, many features don’t work, there are more bugs, and on every upgrade the experience might be different. As such, if you’re not happy with Windows 10, the software maker is adding an option to uninstall and go back to Windows 8.1.
Now if you’ve upgraded your computer from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 using the “Get Windows 10” app, you will see that after the upgrade, on the C:\ drive, there is a Windows.old folder, which contain all the files from your previous version of Windows. This also means that you can use the recovery feature to uninstall Windows 10 and rollback — in this case to Windows 8.1 with just a few clicks.
In this video that I have added to YouTube will guide you with all the steps on how to uninstall Windows 10 from your PC and go back to Windows 8.1 by simply going to Settings > Update & security > Recovery and clicking the Get started button.
There is only one caveat with the recovery feature, you can only downgrade to the previous version within the first month after the upgrade. After this month, you won’t be able to use Settings app option.
In case, you’re reading this guide after the first month, you have a few other choices to go back to Windows 8.1. The first option is to roll back using the full backup you have created before the upgrade or by doing a clean installation of Windows 8.1.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 21 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].