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Pat asked: “I switched over to Windows 10 and I’m not really good at computers. I would like to go back to Windows 8 that I had before. Is there any chance I can do the restore thing and go back to what I had before or does that goof up your computer? I really don’t like 10, but I was under the assumption that everybody would have to go to it eventually anyway.”
If you still have the Windows.old folder in your hard drive from back when you upgraded to Windows 10, you should be able to roll back easily. To find out if you can, go to Settings, Update & Security, and Recovery. If you have everything you need to allow Windows to handle the rollback for you, then you should be seeing a big “Go Back To Windows 8” with a button below to get started. If you don’t see that, your backup is gone, and you can’t have Windows roll back to 8 for you.
That doesn’t mean that you definitely can’t go back, it just means that it will be much harder and you may not think it’s worth doing it. You’d be looking at doing a clean Windows installation as you would if you didn’t have an operating system at all. That means reinstalling all programs, backing up and putting back all files, basically it would be the same experience as buying a new computer and moving absolutely everything you need and use to it. If you choose to roll back either manually or through Windows 10’s built in “go back” feature, back everything up! You can easily lose data when doing operations like that, and you’re better off making sure that you will have a copy of all of your files in case things go wrong.
Microsoft has begun upgrading everyone to Windows 10 even when they don’t ask for it.
The reason that you’re hearing people say “everybody will have to go to Windows 10” is that Microsoft has begun upgrading everyone to Windows 10 even when they don’t ask for it. The OFFER of a free Windows 10 upgrade has been lurking in the system tray of eligible copies of Windows 7 and 8 for almost a year now. But many people have ignored it. And the offer is about to expire. Microsoft won’t admit this, but our theory is that they don’t want to deal with legions of people who were offered free upgrades complaining loudly when they discover they must now pay for their upgrades. So they’re shoving them down your throat. When the dialog box pops up and says it’s going to install Windows 10, you’re offered three choices: postpone it for up to 8 hours, reschedule it for up to 5 days in the future, or cancel it altogether and say goodbye to your free upgrade. Even though we generally like Windows 10, we strenuously object to Microsoft installing it on our computers without our permission.