How to roll back your Windows 10 upgrade

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What works, what doesn’t, suggestions and fixes. InfoWorld
[See the full post at: How to roll back your Windows 10 upgrade]

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Woody,
I’d like This Article of Yours much better if You had used
“OOO” (Out Of Luck) instead of “SOL” in it.

I love reading Technical Articles that You and Others write to help me learn whats, what in this crazy computer world.

I have only purchased one Dummy book and returned it because the writer (Not You) had to get nasty in the instructions of how to install RAM on a Motherboard.

I told the Salespeson at Waldon Books I was returning it because it wasn’t fit to be sold to decent folks.

I haven’t got interested in buying any Dummy books since.
In fact, I try to learn from reading what people like You put on the internet for free.

Thank You!

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One critical step in the process – making an image backup of your W10 system – may fail. On my system this process fails with a couple of error messages: “Volume Shadow Copy Service Failed” and ” Writer Experienced a Transient Error” – both with unhelpful error messages. I have been told that this is an obscure bug that has existed for a long time, and MS may or may not get around to fixing it. The problem apparently doesn’t affect everyone – but does occur for some users. Restoring to W7 or W8.1 without a backup is not a good idea.

David

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Supremely Outta Luck…

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I find that most people in the general public who have computers are computer USERS. Just that. They know very little about the computer they are using. They are marginally aware of Windows Update, after all, the default setting is Automatic. Very few knew they should make restore disks (after OEMs stopped providing them) for their new computer, or even that the function existed. Most have never backed up their data, much less on a regular basis. I have seen people “copy” (like copy and paste) the contents of their entire C: drive to an external HDD thinking all they had to do to have a working system (Windows, programs, data) was “copy” the contents back to the computer if something happened. They have no idea what User Account Control is, but the boxes requesting permission that constantly pop up when they install or change something have taught them just to click “Yes” to whatever comes along – without reading or understanding what’s happening.

These people are not all “illiterate,” they are just COMPUTER illiterate.
They do not read the tech news. Many are not aware of Microsoft’s push to put Windows 10 on everyone’s computer through Windows Update. They cannot even see the hidden folders with the install bits. When the GWX app pops up with no “decline” option, it doesn’t occur to them to click the “X” to close the box. They click “later.” And BAM!, they’ve got Win10 because they’ve also been conditioned to blindly accept the EULA without reading it. It doesn’t occur to them to decline.

The people who “like” Win10 are usually those who have voluntarily gone after it. The feedback I get from the people that it just “happened” to is mostly “I don’t like it” and “I WISH I had my old system back.” When I explain that you have 30 days to roll back to your old system, they tell me they don’t know how long it’s been or, it’s been more than 30 days. They didn’t know it was possible, and would not have known how to do it (even with instructions) if they had. And if it doesn’t work, well, …… no backup, and they are Supremely Outta Luck.

I have encouraged people to keep their current system, if they are comfortable with it, until support runs out or they need a new computer. Most of them don’t have high-end computers anyway (the price tag, not the computer, was the decision maker) so it will probably be the latter. By then, hopefully, Win10 (or whatever it evolves into) will be more mature and the controversies will have been settled. At the very least, they have till July 29th to decide.

It is not Win10 as a whole that I object to, although there are things I would like to see changed. What I am opposed to, and appalled by, is the way that MS is blatantly taking advantage of their vulnerable User base. At a time when the PC market is shrinking, MS should be courting their customers, not alienating them, not hiding information from them, not out-and-out lying to them. The people who are Microsoft live among the hoi polloi. They have to be aware of what they are doing. And it’s unethical.

Oh, my! A RANT! Sorry, Woody!

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@woody Perhaps a tongue-in-cheek question… if you upgrade and then roll back, does Microsoft’s enthusiastic upgrade encouragement start up again, or do they finally understand all of “No, I don’t want Windows 10”?

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Great question. Yep, “Get Windows 10” re-appears in all its glory….

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Rolling it back to 7 was easy enough. Repairing the Windows Task Scheduler that operation broke is beyond me.

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What Task Scheduler item got broken in the rollback?

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Windows own backup is full of limitations and causes a lot of errors.

This is one Windows feature I would replace with third-party options. My personal favorite is Macrium Reflect Free with the WinPE 10 Rescue Media. WinPE is a big download, but worth the wait for the flexibility of the recovery environment.

Before I get any farther, I’d like to make clear that you will need to back up the previous OS system and then upgrade, then back up the Windows 10 OS system only after determining that it is indeed functioning exactly correctly, including OS and Windows Store (Universal or Metro) Apps updating.

(I had a tablet fail to correctly upgrade the Windows Store, and this led to reinstalling Windows 10 after backing it up — a real bummer for me both in time and emotional distress.) You can also expect a few drivers to need third-party (manufacturer) upgrades after the OS upgrade. Point is, thoroughly test the upgraded OS before committing it to a system backup.

I have never had a Macrium Reflect backup of a healthy and clean (virus free) system fail to run or to verify. (System Recovery is still a bit dicey, especially on UEFI Fast Boot devices and WIMBoot devices, but this is true for any backup option.)

There are other third-party backup options which are also better for a lot of folks than the Windows 10 built in features.

For rollback without a good backup, I found having my own physical Windows 8 or 8.1 install media was a good investment. Still, no fun at all to do it this way. Data from the old installation must be fully backed up prior to any system upgrade. Preferably, locally and to the Cloud. No third-party tools are needed for Windows 8, 8.1 or 10 data backups.

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With UACs and doing insecure click-throughs, one more observation:

It doesn’t help that Microsoft sets users up to by default operate on a daily basis with a could-connected Administrator Account. Especially if folks fall for the Bitlocker branding of EFS with Microsoft holding the encryption keys. Certain Cortana features also work best from a cloud-connected Administrator account.

Forced Automatic Updates further reinforce the culture of “just click it” for any popup which comes from the Notification Area. Smart Screen Filters also reinforce the culture of “just trust us and click OK”.

MS just doesn’t give casual users a fighting chance!

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Hi Woody, I reduced about 60 corrupt tasks to 19 using a fix authored by Dijii which has received some glowing comments from more able victims than me.

“The task image is corrupt or has been tampered with.”

Tasks named as such: User Task, System Task,USBCeip, KernelCeip Task, Scheduled DeFrag, Microsoft-Windows-Disk Diagnostic Data Collector, Notifications, WinSat, LPRemove, BackgroundConfigSurveyor, Analyze System, RacTask, RegIdleBackup, WindowsParentalControls,IPAddressConflict2, IPAddressConflict1, Synchronize Time, and QueueReporting.

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Good grief! Do you have a link to the tool you used?

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In case Joe doesn’t get back to you Woody I’d have to guess this is what he used. The reviews all point to roll-backs from Win 10 and I see the name “Dijii” here.

https://repairtasks.codeplex.com/releases/view/616789

PS. Don’t bother posting this if Joe gets back to you.

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Thanks, Ed

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That’s the one, Ed. My affected computer isn’t one I ever intend to use very much and I’ll wait a bit before I try a fix. I was encouraged by the debacle to get serious with backups to my other two Win 7 rigs.

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