How often can you (re)install W10 within the 1st yr?

Ok - I've an Asus S65C laptop which came in 2013 with W8 pre-installed (now 8.1). I stupidly decided to have a go with W10 & see what happened - well, like many other laptop users in particular I gather, all went wonderfully well, & in fact initially I thought I was still in 8 as nothing looked any different. BUT then I discovered firstly that I'd no mouse/touchpad capability & secondly that I'd lost internet WiFi. I'd hoped for some easy fixes, but Asus have just told me to revert to W8 until they release some fixes & support later on.

SO my only question IS - having reverted within the month can I then reattempt another FREE W10 install later & if no joy repeat the process as often as wished in this first year?? Or is it a case that once you revert then they'll want you to pay for it i.e. is the Free offer free of any caveats or restrictions etc??

I might have little choice but to revert given the laptops pretty unusable without wifi access as I can't download anything directly to it & it equally can't connect easily to my network etc. But will do so much happier if I know I can easily repeat the upgrade for free later on.

Thanks.

You should not have any trouble coming back to Windows 10 after a reversion as long as it's installed to the same hardware it was the first time (can't say what happens when you try to activate Windows 8 again, though).

rbmorse said:

(can't say what happens when you try to activate Windows 8 again, though).

After a certain number of times within a certain timeframe (and I don't know what they are, I just know that I have hit the limits), Windows 8 will no longer activate automatically over the internet and the user has to call the automated activation phone number. You enter the product ID that Windows tells you, a computer voice asks you how many computers you have installed this version on and you answer "one". The computer voice then gives you the code to activate Windows.

Microsoft can't legally refuse to activate the same key just because it is used multiple times because it is perfectly legal for the user to use the same key over and over again. There is no limit mentioned in the EULA to the number of times a user can re-install and activate Windows - just limits on what computer(s) they legally can do so.

You can also upgrade to Windows 10 as many times as you need to - and after 1 upgrade do as many clean installs as you need to.

Thanks guys - that's all great info so much appreciated. If I can manage to get my previous copy of Macrium working I'll indeed do an image of the 10 to hopefully come back to if desired. I've not ever attempted a restore from an image of this kind so will be interesting to try it out.

TBH - I'm not 100% sure the wifi issue is down to W10 so it may prove necessary to play about between both OS until I find a workable one. Only fortunate this isn't my main machine :) !

Really appreciate your info tho as I'd tried searches but couldn't get any specific results.

I haven't been able to find model S65C....however,

I upgraded an ASUS T100 transformer tablet and the touchpad stopped working. Touchscreen and Bluetooth mouse worked. Had to uninstall the Smart Gesture software which contained the touchpad driver and then install the newest version of Smart Gesture downloaded from ASUS. That got the touchpad working.

On another machine, I had to manually install a network adapter driver from the manufacturer to get Wake On Lan working. I downloaded the driver from the manufacturer and extracted it. Then I went to Device Manager from the old control panel, right click on the network adapter, update driver, browse computer for driver, then "let me pick the hardware" (or something like that) - the same driver install method that has been there since Windows 3.11. Browsed to the .inf file in the extracted drivers, picked the network adapter and installed the manufacturer's driver that way.

NavyLCDR said:

I haven't been able to find model S65C....however,

LOL - Senior moment = S56C - but I'm happily just reverted back to 8.1 & EVERYTHING working perfectly as far as I can tell so no lasting damage from all my messing around trying to get settings sorted. Should maybe say I did this using the Restore in W10 Settings section - figured I'd try that out first off before attempting an Image Restore from the backup I took prior to the upgrade. Happy to know at least I'm functional again without any further issues to contend with. The Asus Rep seemed to be fairly insistent that I wait on them bringing out updated drivers etc- probably fed up dealing with the dozens of others who've gone down my path.

Thanks again for all your info.

Luckily your original, from the factory restore partition was unaffected which is what the BIOS booted into when you did the restore reboot from Windows 10.

Most likely a corrupted wifi driver. Just uninstall the driver and let windows reinstall it for you.