Recently, this became a problem for those who have bought computers or laptops produced by HP that came with the Windows 8 OEM installed. At that time, HP declared that they would not offer support for anyone who would downgrade to Windows 7 from Windows 8, thus creating quite a stir among the owners of HP computers. However, HP has updated their policy much to their relief, and now users can downgrade to Windows 7 without voiding their warranty. Maybe other OEMs will follow HP’s example.
Downgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7
Microsoft allows users who own a copy of Windows 8 Pro to downgrade to an older version of Windows, be it 7 or Vista (downgrade to XP is not supported), as they had done with previous versions of Windows, as we can see from the Windows 8 license agreement: Now that you have caught your breath knowing that you have the possibility to downgrade, let’s move on to the next step: how to downgrade to Windows 7 from Windows 8? There is no easy way to do this because Microsoft does not provide such a tool in any of their operating systems. Also, I have consulted with the Microsoft website, and there is no information available on how to downgrade your Windows operating system. This means that only those who have OEM licenses of Windows 8 can downgrade to Windows 7, but the computer manufacturer must do the downgrade. Therefore, if you only bought a retail version of Windows 8, you are left with one option: buy a copy of Windows 7 (if you do not have one yet) and install it on your computer.
Installing Windows 7 over Windows 8
If you are installing a new OS on your device, you must undergo a few steps before starting. First of all, determine if there is any information on your C: partition that you want to keep. If so, copy it on your other partitions/cloud service/external drive. Also, just to be safe, you can make a disk image of your C: drive as a backup, just in case you will encounter errors and need to revert to Windows 8. Finally, after saving all your files, you can continue by making a bootable drive with Windows 7. For this, you will need the Windows 7 ISO and a DVD or USB flash drive (the flash drive must have at least 8GB ).
Creating a boot-able DVD
If you want to create a DVD with Windows 7, you will need to install a program called Nero. This allows you to create a bootable DVD very quickly with next to no effort. After installing Nero, stick in your blank DVD and in the Nero main screen, select “DVD” and “Open”, now you have to browse for your .ISO file. After opening the file, click on “Burn” and wait for the burning process to complete.
Creating a boot-able USB Flash Drive
If you are installing Windows 7 from a USB flash drive, you will notice that there are lots of utilities around the web that allow you to accomplish this. Still, from personal experience, I would recommend doing this the old-fashioned way, with Command Prompt. Also, remember that you will need a USB flash drive that has 8GB or more, and before you start, copy all your files from the flash drive, because this process will erase all the data from the USB flash drive. This is how to do it:
Search for “CMD” and run it as administrator (it is crucial that you run it this way, otherwise it will give you an error later on) After the command prompt window opens, type “DISKPART” and enter the following commands in this order: Copy all the files from the .ISO file to your USB flash drive, and after the process is completed, you are done. Now, with your copy of Windows 7 ready to go, you can perform the normal installation. Select your USB drive as the boot source and install the operating system. It is quite a shame that Microsoft does not implement a feature that allows users to downgrade automatically to an older version of Windows. Especially now, when Windows 8 is so different from the older versions, and it might not be to the liking of everyone.
