Resetting Windows 10 to factory settings, need help with Windows 7

Hello,

I previously made a thread detailing my dual booting between Windows 7 and Windows 10 on my HP laptop. This has served me very well for the last 3 years, with Windows 7 performing as expected (this was the OS I have been using). However, Windows 10 is not as straightforward.

Issues I have ran into with Windows 10:

• Software not running at all, or very poorly, on Windows 10, which run perfectly fine under Windows 7
• CPU Parking on Windows 10 which I am unable to resolve (also, one of the recent Windows 10 updates (1803 or 1809) has locked out my power settings so only Balanced is viewable)
• Fan speed a bit slow on Windows 10 (and also Windows 7), cannot be manually adjusted
• Slower boot up times on Windows 10, as fast boot has to be disabled for dual booting to work

Issues that I am now facing with Windows 7:

• End of life on 1/14/20 - need to use Windows 10 as my main partition. However I also need to keep Windows 7 as there is software that won't work on Windows 10, that I need to continue using.
• Windows Media Player will no longer get metadata for CDs on Windows 7 - so I have to use Windows 10 for that
• Bluetooth not working on Windows 7 (though that has been like it for ages and can't be resolved)

I need to keep my dual booting between the two operating systems as my older laptop, that is Windows 7 only, has severe overheating issues that cannot be rectified without motherboard removal - and even then may not be 100% fine.

The last time Windows 10 ran smoothly was when I first got this laptop, before the dual booting. And I have a USB by the manufacturer that will recover to factory settings - which I think will be the best way of getting Windows 10 working.
However, this will completely blow away everything currently on the hard drive - including Windows 7 (which is currently fine) - and I do not want to clean install Windows 7 again, because of the driver issues I encountered previously (in the end, had to pay an IT shop to get the drivers installed as they were so difficult to configure properly).

What I would like to do is:

1. Back up my Windows 7 partition to another hard drive as is (effectively cloning it)
2. Running the HP USB recovery to reset Windows 10 to how it was out of the factory
3. Shrink the new Windows 10 partition so that it has enough space for the old Windows 7 partition to go into
4. Add the Windows 7 partition back on to the PCs hard drive, setting up dual booting again without the loss of data or the need to reinstall drivers.

My specs can be found on my profile, and the 2TB HDD is currently configured to 1TB + 1TB. I cannot switch to an SSD because 2TB SSDs are going to be horrifically expensive, even if they exist.

Any help on this would be appreciated!

Sounds like a good plan. Use Macrium Reflect Free to make the backup image of Windows 7.

After installing Windows 10 turn off hibernation with:
powercfg -h off

Hibernation and the associated Windows 10 fast startup will interfere with dual booting.

Hi,
Think 10 is cranky as you put it because dual booting with 7 and 10
7 would would best installed first
On your other thread looks like it's the opposite

If 7 is on partition F.

NavyLCDR said:

Sounds like a good plan. Use Macrium Reflect Free to make the backup image of Windows 7.

After installing Windows 10 turn off hibernation with:
powercfg -h off

Hibernation and the associated Windows 10 fast startup will interfere with dual booting.

So basically, just to confirm, if I back up the Windows 7 partition, then I won't need to reinstall 7 from scratch, I can just put the backed up partition back into my hard drive when Windows 10 is up and running as it should? And the drivers are already on the Windows 7 partition, so they shouldn't be an issue.
(Installing the drivers the first time around was a nightmare.)

I previously found out that fast startup was interfering with the dual boot process, as it wouldn't allow me to go to Windows 7. However, the last time I tried, with fast boot switched on, it would still bring up the OS choices upon restart - just not on shutdown.

Hibernate on Windows 7 currently works fine without any issues, even with dual boot.

I've also got a USB with Windows 10 version 1803 (or 1809) on it - might it be worth trying to blow away Windows 10, clean install version 1803/1809, then seeing if it runs better under dual boot that way? As I don't want to mess up my Windows 7 install!

Hi,
In theory if the system image creation/ verify of image and restore process is successful yes.

Sometimes the issue appears if the recovery media was created in say 1809 and you clean install say 1903/ 1909 the recovery media might need to be updated before the newer build will allow the disk to be written too/ altered.

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
In theory if the system image creation/ verify of image and restore process is successful yes.

Sometimes the issue appears if the recovery media was created in say 1809 and you clean install say 1903/ 1909 the recovery media might need to be updated before the newer build will allow the disk to be written too/ altered.

Hi,
Hopefully the whole thing will be successful, as I don't want to lose my perfectly fine Windows 7 OS :)

The original HP recovery media is very old, as the laptop was purchased in November 2015 - so it will be earlier than even the Anniversary Update - back when Windows 10 was less bloated than it is now! I'll have to use that, and then upgrade straight through to 1803 or 1809. At the moment, 1809 seems to be the sweet spot, as 1903 and 1909 have/had issues before.

I also have a bootable USB that is either 1803 or 1809, it is purely Windows 10, so no drivers or anything - I might try this first, by blowing away whatever Windows 10 is currently installed, and installing 1803/1809 from scratch (then installing drivers).
Speaking of, which is the best way to install drivers? Obviously you want to do chipset, then restart, then graphics, then restart, then others (such as USB, LAN/WLAN etc) - is there a recommended order to proceed in after chipset and graphics?

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
Think 10 is cranky as you put it because dual booting with 7 and 10
7 would would best installed first
On your other thread looks like it's the opposite

If 7 is on partition F.

Yeah, I think it is Windows 10 not liking dual boot, but other computers I've seen which are dual boot (e.g. Windows 10 and Ubuntu LTS) work perfectly fine, so I think there's something not right with 10. But I've got to somehow keep this laptop as dual boot, as any future laptop I purchase (such as a gaming laptop) will be too new for drivers to be available, plus Microsoft said sometime ago that they would not support Windows 7 updates on anything newer or equal to a Intel 7th gen CPU. Obviously that will not be an issue in the future if updates are being stopped (as they are on 1/14/20), but I still need Windows 7 due to software incompatibilities between Windows versions. (I tested some older software today, on Windows 7, and it was perfectly fine - on Windows 10, it was having none of it, even in compatibility mode!)
The screenshots on the other thread do not apply, as they were the very first time I tried attempting a dual boot. In the end, I had to get the laptop taken into a IT repair shop, due to the difficulty of installing the Windows 7 drivers (literally the only thing that would work was the CD/DVD drive, then you had to go from there). Hence, I need to keep Windows 7 because driver installation will be a big problem if that OS has to be reinstalled.
Below is the current drive configuration - note that drive F is an external device and does not apply to the dual booting.

I would back up the Windows 7 to an external drive. Boot from the newer Windows 10 USB flash drive, select the custom install option, on the next screen when you get the list of partitions on the drive, delete every partition except for the last Windows 7 partition. Highlight the resulting unallocated space and click next. After Windows 10 is installed, disable hibernation:
powercfg -h off

Then add Windows 7 to the boot menu using the appropriate BCD boot command which will be something like:
bcdboot D:\Windows /d /addlast

Change the D:\Windows to match whatever drive letter the Windows 7 partition gets.