If you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 and you don’t like it, you can roll back your PC to its previous operating system. How you uninstall Windows 10 depends on how much time has passed since you made the switch. If it’s been within 10 days, you can easily go back to Windows 8.1 or even Windows 7 using the Go Back option. If it’s been longer than that, or if you had a clean install and not an upgrade, it’s a little more complicated.

Before you downgrade to Windows 7 or go back to Windows 8.1, you should back up all personal data on your Windows 10 machine. Remember, it doesn’t matter whether that data would or could be recovered during the restore. It’s always better to err on the side of caution when performing these types of tasks.

There are many ways to back up data before you uninstall Windows 10. You can manually copy your files to OneDrive, to an external network drive, or to a physical backup device like a USB drive. After you reinstall your older operating system, you can copy those files back to your computer. You can also use Windows 10's backup tool if you prefer, but be careful about using this as your only backup option. You may run into compatibility issues with an older operating system when you try to restore.

In addition, you may want to back up the installation files for any applications that you want to continue using. Third-party applications will not be reinstalled during the restore. If you downloaded them from the Internet, the executable files may be in your Downloads folder. However, you can always redownload the program files. You may also have older programs on DVDs, so find those before continuing. If any of these programs require a product key, find that as well.