New
#11
Yeah, I wish that I knew someone with the disc to install from, or even an .iso, but I don't. No worries, though, I may figure this out yet. Thanks for your help!
For Windows 8.1: Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help
for some reason i can't find one for Windows 8.0
Yep, it's a new PC with 8.1 pre-loaded on it. I just noticed that there are two 'recovery' partitions on my hd now. One of them is for the Windows 10. The other, I bet, is for the 8.1. I wish I could tell which was which using the disk management tool in Win 10, but I can't. All I can see is that they're recovery partitions. If I knew which one was the Win10 one, I could delete it, reboot, hit F3 and choose to recover the 8.1 one. Hmm.
Oops.
To get the free Win 10 upgrade to activate, it has to be installed as an upgrade over an installed, and activated, qualifying OS (7 SP1, 8.1). I believe that you also have to do the kind of upgrade that preserves files, settings, and applications (keep everything) to get 10 to activate.
If that is done once, then you can use the free upgrade to clean install on the same hardware. No license key is needed, and you won't be given one.
I hope that you can find a way to restore 8.1. (Did MSI include some sort of recovery disk? The laptop's manual mentions it as an option.)
You could buy a key from the Microsoft store (in the USA, at least), but it ain't cheap.