Windows 10 to revert to Windows 8.1 after format

daryll94 · 23 Mar 2017

[1] First i decided to format my laptop for because of a problem i thought a virus
20170114 042801 - YouTube
this video detail of problem is on description. Hope someone can help me with this

[2] Back to topic
I format my laptop using windows 10 (Settings> Update & Security> Recovery> Advanced Setup> and something in reset everything) As the Settings> Update & Security> Recovery> Reset PC is not working properly for me.

After hours of waiting i finnaly got to setup the laptop but to my surprise the problem [1] is still here and whats more is after i finish setting up laptop become windows 8.1, which is supposed not to happen as i have upgraded to windows 10 long ago and old files have been removed already.

timeline for my laptop windows is:
2014- bought it in using windows 8.1 til the release of free windows 10 upgrade (2015?)
and around the time of windows 10 upgrade i delete the old files of 8.1 and format it and goes back to win10

2017 march 22 -formatted due to problem [1] and im confident that it will be normal like i did before but it became 8.1

Question is how to fix this and how can i go back to windows 10 since free upgrade is long gone?

simrick · 23 Mar 2017

Hi Daryll94 and welcome to Tenforums.

That video is indeed strange - I've never seen anything like it.

It sounds to me as if you invoked the OEM recovery partition when you did the reset and that's why it went back to W8.1.

Here's what I would do (assuming all your data is backed up):

Once a system has had W10 installed and activated on it, it has a digital license for W10 stored on the MS servers, so you can reinstall W10 as often as you like/need. You skip entering the key during installation, and, as long as you've installed the same version of Windows10 (Home or Pro), it will auto activate based on the MS servers.

So, download W10, save the ISO to a flash drive (using RUFUS), boot the system to it, select custom install, delete all partitions (including the OEM recovery partition), and install fresh and clean.

daryll94 · 23 Mar 2017

Hi thanks for the reply.
So is it safe to assume that i can freely go back to windows 10 anytime i like?

As for the problem i posted with video. I hope somebody can help me with it as it is annoying as it is already is.

Bree · 23 Mar 2017

daryll94 said:

So is it safe to assume that i can freely go back to windows 10 anytime i like?

Yes, so long as you install the same edition (Home or Pro) as you had before and for which you now have a digital licence stored on Microsoft's activation servers.

In fact, for a machine designed for Windows 8 an OEM key is usually embedded in the hardware. Windows 10 Setup should detect this and skip past the bits where it asks if you want Home or Pro or asks for a product key. It should activate automatically once installed.

daryll94 · 23 Mar 2017

Alright good sir thanks for the reply