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So, I took advantage of the "free" upgrade of a couple of "Professional" level licenses, at the last minute. I'm left wondering whether and for what timeframe

So, I took advantage of the "free" upgrade of a couple of "Professional" level licenses, at the last minute. I'm left wondering whether and for what timeframe I can legitimately "downgrade" back to Win 7 Pro, if I need to. I initially thought I had an open-ended option to. But the other day, I saw brief and incomplete mention of a 30 day window. I just can't keep up with the dribbling of fractured news/information, so... asking this of anyone already familiar with this aspect of the "downgrade" question". I don't have a need to, right now. As it is, those Windows partitions mostly sit idle. But if I only have 30 days to go back (while keeping a future 10 re-upgrade possible / tied to those licenses), then maybe I'd better do so, now, as a hedge against e.g. some legacy driver issue that may crop up in the future. Especially as I would intend to do a fresh Win 10 installation for each of those licenses, eventually (negating any "it's already on the system" grandfathering Win 10 may continue to permit).

FreeFull 10y ago
I think once you have upgraded to Windows 10 with a particular license, you're free to do a clean reinstall of Windows 10 using that license without any problems.
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  That's my understanding, too. And I plan to take advantage of it, eventually. For the moment, the upgraded partitions/installs are "going back to sleep" on hard drives being popped out and set aside. They'll come back out the next time I need to deal with e.g. Adobe Creative Suite, or some family need aka Mom project.
JonathonW 10y ago
You can legitimately downgrade anytime; your Win 7 license is still valid (just not to be used at the same time at 10, since the Win 10 license is an upgrade license). You can then re-upgrade to Windows 10 at any point, as long as it's on the same hardware (either doing a clean install using your Windows 7 key or no key, or doing another upgrade install). The 30 day window is the period of time where you can uninstall and revert to 7 from within Windows 10, without having to do a clean install of 7. Windows 10 removes files from the old version of Windows after 30 days.
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  Thank you. Exactly what I was looking to understand. :-)
Navarr 10y ago
I think you have 30 days before it deletes the Windows.OLD directory in C:\

FreeFull 10y ago

I think once you have upgraded to Windows 10 with a particular license, you're free to do a clean reinstall of Windows 10 using that license without any problems.

pasbesoin 10y ago
That's my understanding, too. And I plan to take advantage of it, eventually. For the moment, the upgraded partitions/installs are "going back to sleep" on hard drives being popped out and set aside. They'll come back out the next time I need to deal with e.g. Adobe Creative Suite, or some family need aka Mom project.

JonathonW 10y ago

You can legitimately downgrade anytime; your Win 7 license is still valid (just not to be used at the same time at 10, since the Win 10 license is an upgrade license). You can then re-upgrade to Windows 10 at any point, as long as it's on the same hardware (either doing a clean install using your Windows 7 key or no key, or doing another upgrade install). The 30 day window is the period of time where you can uninstall and revert to 7 from within Windows 10, without having to do a clean install of 7. Windows 10 removes files from the old version of Windows after 30 days.

pasbesoin 10y ago
Thank you. Exactly what I was looking to understand. :-)

Navarr 10y ago

I think you have 30 days before it deletes the Windows.OLD directory in C:\