Bear with me on this, I have googled but am drawing a blank for techniques a layman can use. I got a new laptop (manufacturer refurb) for Christmas. When I first turned it on it offered me the option to upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 10. I did this and have since had to restore Windows 10 twice as it keeps losing functions (start menu fails, all Windows apps disappear, sound disappears even after reinstalling drivers). So I thought I’d go back to Windows 8.

However the option to rollback isn’t present on my computer where the internet says it should be. The Acer website suggests I can restore it to factory settings at start up but I’m worried that as the rollback option is gone all the Windows 8 stuff has gone forever.

It’s worth noting I don’t have a product key for Windows, it never came with one.

Anyone any idea what I can do?

Thanks!

You should be able to boot to recovery tools and access any factory recovery image on the hard disk. There should be a prompt in the first few seconds after you boot up.

If that doesn’t work, it probably doesn’t need a product key for Win 8. I think factory installs of Windows are based on registering the motherboard (or hardware configuration). If you reinstall Win 8.1, it should detect that the hardware is licensed and register it as a valid copy. You should be able to download the Win8.1 ISO files from Microsoft and burn an install disk or create a bootable USB stick. You must make sure you have exactly the same version of Windows (i.e. language, 32 or 64 bit, Home or Professional). You can then boot from that disk and use the recovery tools to try and restore the original configuration or just do a clean install.

Before you do that, make a bootable Win10 install disk as well. If the Win8 recovery goes bad, you will be able to reinstall Win10. This will definitely not require a registration key because the hardware has been registered as valid.

Very useful that holst, thanks very much.

F8 on boot should give you a boot menu with a recovery option on it. (If that doesn’t work, try holding Shift when selecting Restart from within Windows).

You don’t need a licence key, it doesn’t work like that any more.

what makes you think it’s going to work any better with Windows 8?