I want to return to 8.1 - but Windows 10 won't let me - HP Stream 7

I have installed Windows 10 on my HP Stream 7 a few times now (and reverted to 8.1 a few times too!) but when HP recently released some Windows 10-specific drivers for the Stream 7, I decided to give it another go.

However, I am not happy with how Windows 10 shows blurry text in so many applications/dialogs/MMCs etc, and also how TINY the text is in some ModernUI apps - I have tried everything to fix these issues and have the same font settings as on Windows 8.1 (125%) but nothing changes. So I want to go back to 8.1 and today I clicked on the button to do so. But was told this:



Basically telling me that the files needed for Windows 8.1 restore have been deleted - except I haven't deleted them. There is still a Windows.old folder on the C:\ drive and I deliberately didn't remove the files in the eventuality of restoring 8.1.

So what are my options? Is there anything I can do to fix this restore option so it will revert to 8.1? My Stream 7 came with no recovery drive, and although there is a recovery partition, when I try and use it, it doesn't work (I think installing 10 made it redundant)

Any information on any of the above would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

Sorry, but you're most likely going to have to do a factory restore from HP Recovery Media. That's a set of DVDs and CD that can be used to restore your PC to its original factory settings. The linked thread from the HP Support Forums has more details: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/bph07143

Thanks for the reply Mark.

What I forgot to mention is that back in June before 10 was even released, I used the built in Windows Imaging tool on 8.1 to create an image of my tablet's drives (all partitions including recovery) on an external USB hard disk.

The problem I have is when I go to boot into the mode where you can "Restore a system image", it only offers me the chance to restore from the network. Well I can't even access the network in that mode, so I can't hook it up to my laptop and restore via the network that way, and also, it doesn't offer the opportunity to restore from the directory on my external USB 3.0 hard disk.

How would I go about restoring the image I made?

Thanks

How would I go about restoring the image I made?

Sorry -- one of the reasons I don't used the built-in tools is problems like the one you're having. I use MR and with that, I can access backups stored locally, on external drives, or on networked drives.

Hopefully, someone will come along who DOES use the built-in tools and give you some aid.

alexncfc said:

Just to revisit here and confirm that I was able to restore my Windows image backup from my 500GB external drive in the end..

Good to see you got it restored.

Hello!
I just wanted to post my recent experience on installing Windows 10 32-bit Anniversary Edition (version 1607) on a HP Stream 7 (P/N: K6F02EA). I had problems with Windows Update in the original Windows 8.1 installation. I tried to do a clean installation of 8.1 by running the setup within Windows. I got an error that could not verify my key, although Windows 8.1 where activated. I then tried to boot from a bootable USB to start setup from there, but unfortunately my USB wasn't UEFI compatible. So I decided to create a new bootable USB Flash drive using the latest official Windows 10 32-bit ISO. This time I could start setup and do a clean installation of Windows 10 32-bit. At first it seemed to work OK until I made the mistake to use Driver Pack Solution to automatically find and install all drivers (too lazy to download them from HP). This is when I lost the touch feature! No panic... I connected a USB keyboard/mouse via the OTG adapter and was able to visit HP site to find the drivers. The small screen size and MS Edge did not work as expected and HP site was stuck at the point when I would choose the operating system to see the available drivers. So I had to find the drivers using Firefox at another computer, copy them to a USB Flash drive and then to the Stream 7. Once I installed HP's drivers touch worked. Now everything is fine!

So when we have a non-typical device to install Windows 10 on, it is far better to install manufacturer's drivers and avoid Windows Update or other auto tools.

If you cant roll back then it's problem AFAIK HP stream 7 tablet comes with Windows 8 with Bing version you can't get that version as consumer easily (there is some ways but they are probably outside of what considered legal). Any other Windows 8 version (home/pro etc) will not install with that key. If only problem you have i DPI scaling (blurry fonts on some applications) then you can try to use windows 8.1 scaling on windows 10.
there is this utility use it at your own risk some users report great success some say it may contain malware
Windows 10 DPI blurry / fuzzy text font fix - XP Explorer

If you want manual fix read this
Solved FIX | Windows 10 Blurry Text and Windows! - Page 2 - Windows 10 Forums