How do I go back to Windows 7 from Windows 8?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #93 I look at the only way to go back from an operating system
upgrade – and that is to use a full image backup taken before the upgrade.

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Go back to Windows 7?

Well, unfortunately, you are not going to like the answer. The answer is:

• Reformat your machine;

• Reinstall Windows 7 and all of your applications from scratch.

There is no uninstall of an operating system. There is no going back.

That’s true for the XP to Vista; Vista to 7; 7 to 8. They were all the same way. There’s no way to roll back an operating system installation.

Backup image

Now, there is one way that could have worked – if you had done it prior to installing Windows 8.

That is – if you have a system image backup taken immediately prior to installing Windows 8, you could restore to that backup and get your machine back to the state it was in before you did the Windows 8 upgrade. Without that kind of a backup the only solution, that I’m aware of, is to grab your Windows 7 installation media and to install Windows 7 from scratch.

And for the record, you should absolutely back up your Windows 8 installation first – because you don’t know what you might want later that might be erased by the Windows 7 reformat and reinstall.

(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)