Upgraded to windows 10- now nothing works….

Finally managed to upgrade my laptop to windows 10 from W7. However now my laptop keeps turning its wifi off and my laptop will no longer shut down.

I have been googling these issues and it appears its pretty common. I have tried all the fixes but nothing seems to work for me.

I cannot be bothered messing about with it. I just want to switch my laptop on, look at a pic of a bike and a few pics of kittens then switch it off. Pretty simple stuff. I can’t be bothered fighting with it any more trying to get it to connect to wifi, download update or whatever else the stupid computer has been doing recently.

So with that in mind How can I revert back to W7? It wasn’t perfect but it worked……

If you have a restore partition or the initial Win 7 install media that will get you back, but make sure you back up your data to a USB / NAS first.

If thats all you want to do, use Linux, its way safer, more secure and just ‘works’. Ubuntu is very straight forward for a first timer.

If you have a restore partition or the initial Win 7 install media that will get you back, but make sure you back up your data to a USB / NAS first.

Don’t do that. Click Start, then Settings. Choose “Update & security” and then “Recovery.” You should see a “Go back to Windows 7” option.

If thats all you want to do, use Linux, its way safer, more secure and just ‘works’. Ubuntu is very straight forward for a first timer.

There’s always one, isn’t there.

I didn’t install any partitions as I am a rank amateur in computering. I’ll Try what Cougar suggests.
Thanks for the help.
Oh also if I do go back to W7 will it keep trying to upgrade me to W10? I did it as part of the free upgrade scheme. There must be a way of asking to computer not to try and update anymore?

If it’s the ‘offered’ upgrade via the button on the bottom menu, there will be a ‘go back to W7’ option somewhere.

In what way was it trying to upgrade you to W10? I have an icon in my notification area (it’s even quite easy to get rid of that, but I’m not bothered) and that’s it. It won’t upgrade automatically, only if you tell it to – it won’t even start the download without you asking to, but even when you have the download you still have to actively ask to upgrade.

Or at least that’s the way it’s worked on any of the W7 computers I’ve worked on, including recent clean installs with a full set of normal upgrades (I did remove the icon on some of those).

Whilst I wouldn’t recommend anyone sticking with an old operating system, here are the instructions for stopping the W10 upgrades:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

Microsoft are soon going to change the W10 upgrade from an optional to a recommended update, which means it will install automatically if your Windows Update settings are in their default configuration on W7 or 8.

I use Linux lots – I’ve installed systems for companies with users on Linux – but I still have W7 on my daily driver, though admittedly I do have rather more requirements than the OP. If W7 works for him then it also “just works”, no issues with security here (I’ve had far more of those with Linux TBH – driver support is rather better with Windows). Going to Linux will involve him having to change and use new stuff – in this case there’s no advantage to switching and it’s far from the best option. He just wants to go back to where he was which should be far simpler than installing Linux.

People do seem to get a bit excited about the OS they (or other people use) when it should just be invisible in the background – W10 wouldn’t enhance my experience of using Chrome, Word or any of the other apps I use in any way, and nor would Linux.

Does that mean you would recommend people upgrading from an operating system which is still fully supported and will be for a number of years yet? I’ve tried W10, and it’s nice and all that, but what’s the actual advantage?

BTW am I missing something here, because W10 uprade doesn’t even appear in my optional updates in Windows Update, I simply have the Get Windows 10 thing, which is all I thought the update provided? How would completely automatic upgrading work given there is some user interaction involved in the upgrade?

I was thinking as I have already asked it to upgrade me to W10, then installed it, then decided to remove it – would it still be doing anything to try and re-intall the W10 on my machine.

Before I upgraded i was having endless updates on my computer which was a pain in the ass. I think at least on one occasion the computer had tried to install W10 as part of these updates. Or is that not possible? When I did eventually Install the W10 upgrade I had to go to the update manager bit and search for updates. I only did this as I kept getting failed update messages etc.

I don’t know, I am no expert, I just want my laptop to work relatively trouble free again!

If that’s all you want a laptop for I would suggest binning the windows laptop and buying a Chromebook, much easier.

aracer – Member
Does that mean you would recommend people upgrading from an operating system which is still fully supported and will be for a number of years yet? I’ve tried W10, and it’s nice and all that, but what’s the actual advantage?

BTW am I missing something here, because W10 uprade doesn’t even appear in my optional updates in Windows Update, I simply have the Get Windows 10 thing, which is all I thought the update provided? How would completely automatic upgrading work given there is some user interaction involved in the upgrade?

The “Get Windows 10” is the optional update – once it changes to recommended it will just install as part of the scheduled Windows Updates.

Windows 7 is technically supported until 2020, which will probably cover the lifetime of most systems in use today, but dealing with the mess of XP / Server 2003 still in use on so many systems and the growing incompatibility of those operating systems, I know first hand the longer upgrades are left the harder they become.

Windows 10 is only a free upgrade until July for home users – this is why I would recommend anyone with a Win7/8 system to upgrade sooner rather than later.

Oldtalent – probably but I still have a laptop so until it dies I wont be doing that.

Ah, so as I suspected it won’t automatically upgrade you, just automatically provide you with the option to upgrade.

Windows 7 is technically supported until 2020, which will probably cover the lifetime of most systems in use today, but dealing with the mess of XP / Server 2003 still in use on so many systems and the growing incompatibility of those operating systems, I know first hand the longer upgrades are left the harder they become.

I’ve also dealt with transition from XP – on a larger scale than most home users will encounter, though Server 2003 is doubtless a whole different level. I didn’t find it all that painful – I think a lot of the issues in the corporate world have been related to upgrading from IE6 rather than with the OS, at least for those using XP rather than Server. I’m not sure that personally I’d be recommending the upgrade as essential before 2019 – particularly given that upgrading from W7 to W10 is relatively pain free compared to previous upgrades, and will certainly be getting easier as driver support improves (they have now issued a major update, so it’s probably now a release candidate rather than still in beta!)

Windows 10 is only a free upgrade until July for home users – this is why I would recommend anyone with a Win7/8 system to upgrade sooner rather than later.

Fair point – the advice I’ve given before for anybody who might want to continue using their system after W7 support ends (which TBH includes me, and probably plenty of IT pros) is to Clonezilla backup their current system then go through the W10 upgrade process before restoring with Clonezilla. My understanding is that this should register the motherboard UUID with the MS license servers and so allow a free upgrade at any point in the future.

Apologies for all the geek stuff of no relevance to the OP!

does anyone know when the upgrade option runs out?

I think it’s the end of June – IIRC it became available at the start of July.

I upgraded a while back, but quickly reverted as pretty much nothing worked, gopro studio even refused to load. No intention of upgrading again, can’t be bothered with the hassle. Use my ipad for most browsing, email etc these days, laptop is just for photo and video editing.

But still, found it very frustrating, and I keep getting annoying notifications that I can’t stop appearing again, only close.

Upgraded to Windows 10 round October. Took me about 6 weeks to crack a problem with the Windows 10 upgrade process – searching online found the solution quite simply, implementing it was tricky. However since then it has been faultless. All my devices work as expected. It is faster to the extent that the PC I was going to replace is now staying. In fact I am upgrading the PC since Windows 10 (new graphics, memory and potentially a SSD) as the PC improved.

I’m currently trying to go back to windows 7 as per above but all that happens is I clicknon the go back to w7 tab and a blue screen saying “getting things ready this won’t take long” appears. And that’s it. Nothing else.

After a while the computer stops doing anything and goes to sleep. There is no progress!

Any ideas? I’ve been trying to roll it back since 6pm!

I have a problem because loading Win 10 has killed a lappy that I bought in July 15. So it’s going back to the supplier shortly. Does anyone have advice for this numpty about dealing with the PFY behind the counter?

No, but I’ve plenty for him.

I work at 3 locations and use some specialist software that is Windows only. I have 3 desktop machines of various ages (one with a touchscreen monitor), 2 laptops (one with a touchscreen), an 8″ tablet, plus an HDMI PC-on-a-stick at home. I upgraded everything to Win10 because it’s much easier to deal with just one OS. I was happy enough with Win8.1 but it’s clear that Microsoft’s focus is going to be on Win10 so I will have to upgrade sooner or later. I decided to just get it over with. The newer machines upgraded flawlessly. The tablet and PC-on-a-stick were a PITA because of the limited disc space. I had a few flaky driver problems that mostly seemed to be due to a USB display adapter.

A colleague is a contented Mac user who also has to occasionally use the same specialized Windows software. He has an old Win7 desktop machine to run those apps. I recommended that he stick with Win7 because Win10 would have no benefit for him and it’s not worth the risk of driver problems, etc with his old hardware.