Downgrading from 8 to 7 - possible?

[drjones]

Hi, I sold a Dell Inspiron i660s-3850BK Desktop to a client. It came with Win8 from the factory & has just been a total hassle; frequent freezing, IE crashes, etc. The problems it's having I believe are caused by Win8, not anything else in particular with the machine.

I'm going to rule out any hardware issues and then am strongly considering installing 7 onto it. I went to Dell's site and it shows Windows 7 drivers available for this model, so will there be any strangeness in loading 7 onto this machine?

Thanks

 

[pctutor]

I expect it will work. But at the very least, create the Win8 recovery discs so in the worst case scenario you can at least get it back to day one status.

 

[nlinecomputers]

If the system has OEM Windows 8 PRO on it you can legally downgrade it to Windows 7 Pro. Otherwise you'll have to sell them a new copy of Windows 7. If you take an image of the system first it doesn't stop you from installing Windows 7 on it as a test. If you don't input a key it will run for 30 days. Windows 8 doesn't have that option.

 

[drjones]

I recall reading something about how Windows 8 somehow does something different with the BIOS to prevent piracy & such; will this cause any problems if I try to load a (legit of course) copy of 7?

Can I also just image the drive with Acronis, in case I decide to restore it to 8 later?

Sorry but Win8 is so weird I feel like I'm starting over again...

UEFI Secure Boot...that's what I'd read of....how does that affect OS install/reinstall, or does it?
Thanks!

 

[drjones]

Ok I forgot on this one: Event log is showing corrupt MFT. Chkdsk has NOT resolved the problem.

Client has very, very basic needs so I copied data to a USB drive and did a "reset" of the PC; will this possibly fix the MFT corruptions or what?

Just doing this as a last-ditch effort before going to 7....the Dell hardware diagnostics passed with flying colors, no errors with hardware.

 

[frederick]

If the MFT is sitting on a bad hard drive, no. Thats weird though, straight out the box and MFT is bad?

Chkdsk, I like and hate this command. It doesn't do a good job, and doesn't tell me everything I want to know. Use something else to verify the disk integrity.

Windows 8 is weird like this. Can you downgrade? Yes. Should you downgrade? No. Not unless you do a clean install. All the guys from microsoft I've talked to and others in the fieldI got in my contacts have told me the same thong, when downgrading, its a clean install.

Windows 8 is fairly stable and my customers have never complained about performance...except....my Windows 8 x86-32 users. They complain all the time that's its slow, its buggy, it crashes, it sucks. But never a MFT issue unless its the hard drive. If you haven't noticed, but microsoft releases (since vista) stable and efficient (excluding the obv ious vista issues) x64 platforms. Their x86-32 platforms on the other hand are full of problems, unreliable, and don't work in my opinion. Outside of the obvious vista problems. When ever I have called microsoft concerning a x86-32 issue, they tell me they know about it the problem, so its common, and they tell me to upgrade it to x64 if I (or the customer) want it fixed.

 

[gikstar]

Have you tested the hard drive to make sure that the hard drive isn't bad to begin with? And I don't mean running chkdsk.
I like to run HDDR (hard disk drive regenerator) to verify if there are a lot of bad sectors and there are other programs like the ones from Seagate and Western Digital you could run.

 

[nlinecomputers]

I recall reading something about how Windows 8 somehow does something different with the BIOS to prevent piracy & such; will this cause any problems if I try to load a (legit of course) copy of 7?

Can I also just image the drive with Acronis, in case I decide to restore it to 8 later?

Sorry but Win8 is so weird I feel like I'm starting over again...

UEFI Secure Boot...that's what I'd read of....how does that affect OS install/reinstall, or does it?
Thanks!

Yes you will need to turn off SecureBoot and Fastboot in the bios. Many also can go to a legacy mode that will turn all that off and force the system to use an MBR and not GPT formatting.

 

[drjones]

Update: I finally was able to coordinate with the client to pick this up to downgrade it to 7...don't want to count my chickens just yet, but....

This machine was running Win8 standard, not Pro.

I popped in one of dozens of OEM Dell Win7 Home Premium disks I have lying around, and after successfully installing, Windows 7 says it's already activated!!

We'll see if any of the problems resurface, but I ran the Dell diagnostics and it came back all clear. HDDScan just shows slightly elevated HD temps; no reallocated sectors or anything, same with CrystalDisk.

I'm very firmly convinced this is a problem with Win8.

I had even done a system restore/refresh; whatever function takes it back to factory conditions. The freezing & other problems still remained for the client..so....Win7 it is.....

 

[skdmaster]

Keep in mind as another poster said you can legally downgrade PRO but not standard Windows 8 so using an Windows 7 disk to reload is technically pirating. Just keep it in mind as it is your business and name that is on the hook if it ever comes back to haunt you.

 

[drjones]

Keep in mind as another poster said you can legally downgrade PRO but not standard Windows 8 so using an Windows 7 disk to reload is technically pirating. Just keep it in mind as it is your business and name that is on the hook if it ever comes back to haunt you.

But Windows activated itself, using the OEM Dell disk I had lying around....

 

[brandonkick]

But Windows activated itself, using the OEM Dell disk I had lying around....

Doesn't matter, this isn't the legal way to do it.

The reason you need to have Windows 8 Pro is because it has downgrade rights with it. You call into M$, give them some information off of the laptop (they need some kinda key that you can find on the laptop but you'll need windows 8 still installed to do it) and they give you a one time activation key to use. Then you can install windows 7 (professional I believe) and activate it using the key that microsoft gave you.

That OEM dell disk will activate in just about any machine you put it in, they come pre activated.

Wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.

 

[johnrobert]

It depends on the slic in bios
I believe Vista was slic 2.0
Win7 slic 2.1
Win8 slic 2.2 Does online activation
So you were lucky still having Win7 slic 2.1 in bios in order to self-activate.

I setup a new win8 laptop a few weeks ago been nothing but trouble browsers constantly crashing

 

[skdmaster]

Doesn't matter if the bios supports the activation or that your OEM disc you used work you are still pirating the OS to your client. You have no rights from Microsoft to install Windows 7 on that system had Windows 8 Pro. If you didn't know then now you do as I am sure you can't go back to that client and say oops. Oh and if you were to do it properly you really should sell them a full version of Windows 7 and not even an OEM Win 7.