# I Want To Go Back To Windows 7



## irish-sid (May 11, 2010)

Hello, I've been rattling my brain how to do this. 
How do I go back to Windows 7? 
I don't have a Windows.old folder (stupidly deleted it)
Windows 7 originally came on my laptop, I upgraded to windows 8 (online not disc). I hate the performance of it. 


I'd really hate to lose my pictures and videos, but I can probably work around that somehow. Is it as simple as a Windows 7 installation disc and intalling from that and then using my old licence key? 

Thanks.


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## LMiller7 (Jun 21, 2010)

You can probably obtain a Windows 7 restore disk from the laptop manufacturer.
Backup all your pictures and other files to an external disk from Windows 8. Of course you should have a backup anyways. Data can be lost for a variety of causes and you need to be prepared when, not if, something happens.


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## irish-sid (May 11, 2010)

Thakn you. 
I'm pretty desperate to do this, it's costing me time and money. Could I buy a windows 7 disc and do it from that? Or is it only a restore disc?


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## turbofish (Dec 3, 2012)

I have installed windows 8 a bunch of times over the past year and have only noticed a performance increase, not a decrease. Granted, what use to be called metro is the worst thing since BOB but once you get a start button back in, it runs great


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## irish-sid (May 11, 2010)

I've found after an extended amount of time on it everything comes to a crawl and it would take 10 mins for task manager to come up so I could kill stuff. I just hate it and want to go back. 
My uncle has an un used Windows 7 from 2 years ago, if you say I'm able to use it then I'll drive out and buy it off him tomorrow.


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## turbofish (Dec 3, 2012)

Sounds like you have something else going on with your system. What is happening in the background to cause it to run so slow? How much ram do you have?


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## irish-sid (May 11, 2010)

Honestly very little, I try not to have a lot of clutter going on, limit what starts at boot ect. 3gb of ram.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Is this Windows 8 64 Bit or Windows 8x86 (32 bit)? 2GB RAM is the minimum RAM for a 64 bit OS. 3GB will run OK, but 4GB will make it run smoothly. 
You can not roll back to Windows 7 from Window 8's *Windows.old *folder. This is just a backup folder for you to move your files over to 8. You would need to Format and then reinstall Windows 7. You can manually backup your pictures, and other files by dragging them to a USB HDD before formatting and installing Windows7


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## irish-sid (May 11, 2010)

It was 64bit Win8. 

So I got the win7 disc from my uncle this morning. I transferred my important stuff to an exHdd and just went for the clean install. It created a Win.old folder anyway, perhaps I was supposed to format? 
Seems ok so far, but if I run into lag would you recommend formatting? Or would there be little benefit?


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

As trubofish said, it is not Windows 8 that was causing your problems, there is something else going on in your system. 
Test the HDD, download the ISO image for* Seatools* in my signature, burn the image to CD using *IMGBurn* also in my signature and boot off of the newly created CD and run the Short and the Long tests on the drive. If either test fails, the HDD needs to be replaced. 
If the HDD comes out clean, then format the drive before installing *Windows 7 *Clean Install Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums


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