Operating system after reformat

aardvaak

I have a HP Pavilion laptop which was running Win 7 now upgraded to Win 10

The computer has a recovery drive so I can restore to original factory settings.

If I reformat using this drive will the computer revert to Win 7 or have microsoft over written it with win 10

I had thought on installation of Win 10 it only goes into the main 'C' drive.

wymondham

You'll find it will revert back to Windows 7. If you can use another pc you can download Windows 10 to a bootable USB and install fresh from that as you've previously activated Windows 10 (removing the now un-needed hidden partition if you wish to get more disk space)...

enfield_freddy

if the machine boots into a recovery section via a key at the bios screen , then doing so "should" reformat your "c" drive and re install windoze 7 as per the factory install

esuhl

However, after 30 days of using Windows 10, doesn't your Win7 licence become Win10 only? Will the old Win7 OS activate after this time?

enfield_freddy

no one knows , too much gossip , no proof yet , however in the past you have been able to downgrade ,**


** in the case of win 7 its the software matches key , not number encoded in bios string


as posted on another thread , I am now getting calls froom people who instead of doing an upgrade to win 10 , listened to "a bloke in a pub" who said a clean install was better


they are all now getting nagging notices from win 10 for unlicensed copies.


time consuming , wiping reloading win 7/8 , upgrading , then wiping out and doing a clean install.


in a lot of cases (win 7) they have "lost" there licence stickers