Downshift: those who have gone from Windows 10 BACK to Windows 8/8.1 or 7

[Dadwen]

I've put one desktop back to Windows 7 due to some driver issues, and may have to do it for a friends wife laptop (it'd be back to windows 8.1, tried the 8.1 driver on 10 but got a odd error and would not install) stopping over tonight to fiddle around with it some.  Still have not updated my main two PC's (mostly due to my dislike of the windows 10 update system) but I am running it on two laptops (one still running the insider version on fast ring).

[Lamp0]

You are looking in the wrong area, its not under WU settings. You go to Advanced System Settings -> Hardware -> Device Installation Settings

Yes, I used this in Windows 8 but, due to all the post release hullabaloo I assumed it was not in Windows 10. Only recently did I discover it is there.

[Ian W]

I intended to go back to Windows 8.1 Update—still thinking about it actually—but since the company supposedly listens to feedback I decided that I would be a . . . guinea pig, if you will, and enable telemetry and send feedback related to the features missing from Windows 10 that were present in Windows 8.1 Update, primarily the Start screen features. Feedback for many of the missing features is currently scarce when compared with other, less significant ones.

At the moment I think Microsoft is at a similar point with Windows 10 when Windows 8 was released in that the ecosystem and interface may need to mature—as an example, look at all of the Start screen features that Windows 8.1 introduced approximately a year after its predecessor (which further raises the question as to why Microsoft felt the need to reinvent the wheel). I hope that Windows 10 sees a similar amount of progress within a similar timeframe.

[sinetheo]

The Hyper-V exam is targeted AT Hyper-V administrators - which, by and large, are going to be running some flavor of Windows Server, for the obvious reason that Windows Server has been supporting Hyper-V longer than Windows clients.  (Hyper-V came to servers with Server 2008 - despite Windows Vista being based on identical code, it doesn't support Hyper-V.  More telling, Windows 7 - the era of the newer of my two notebooks - doesn't support Hyper-V; however, my notebook does.  And if you want to run Hyper-V on a Core 2-based PC (same era), your only options were three server OSes - Server 2008, Server 2008R2, or Server 2012.  Windows 8 - the first Windows client OS to support Hyper-V, required SLAT support to do so - Server 2012R2 (same code as 8) still didn't.  SLAT didn't become a requirement until the still-in-testing Server 2016 on the server side, while it has ALWAYS been a requirement for the only three client Windows versions that support Hyper-V.)  Therefore, due to the SLAT requirement on Windows clients, it is still more likely that Hyper-V will be used on a server OS (remember, the shipping Windows server OSes don't require SLAT to leverage Hyper-V) not to mention that, despite the ability to run Server 2012 OR Server 2012R2 as a workstation OS (complete with support for everything except DirectX) simply by adding Desktop Experience (which includes support for the Windows App Store, by the way), Wireless Networking Services (exactly what it sounds like) and Pen and Ink Services (stylus and even touch-screen support on servers - it dates back to Server 2012) via Server Manager, it uses FEWER computing resources than Windows 8 or 8.1 (due to lack of need for DirectX - remember, Windows Store "apps" don't need, require, or even USE DirectX).

Actually the version of Hyper-V on 8.1 is 1-1 identical to the server version of 2012 R2 :-)

Only thing missing is the clustering and heartbeat but that is because the services are not enabled on a client OS obviously. The exam questions at the 410 level are pretty stupid and based off of which can you shut off in a live environment or which sets of actions for the least disruptive downtime to get X down.

Windows 10 Hyper-V has integration services that are updated via update which do more so can throw me off on the exam. Can I for example change ram to dynamic on a live VM? I don't know. With 8.1 I can create a table in excel to study and try to change every setting and record if it works or does not in gen 1 and gen 2 and memorize it. Again you wonder why the MCSA and MCSE is not well regarded compared to a real exam like the ESX or Citrix CCNA and it is because of rote memorization.

I have an i7 4770k so that cpu should support pretty much everything except virtualizad I/O or the -d instructions which Xeons and AMD uses so I should be fine for a lab.

[NZLion]

I rolled back on my Surface 3 because the win8.x UI works much better than the win10 UI on that device for my usage patterns.

1. Tablet mode is way too dumbed down and intrusive for me. It's so limited as to be useless for my purposes. I bought a Surface, not an iPad.
2. I can't stand the new OneNote - The Win8.1 OneNote Store App UI was immensely better than the desktop app UI IMO, but the Win10 universal app uses something much more like the desktop UI
3. I think hot corners were a great idea and I really miss them (more on this in a moment)
4. Cortana doesn't even have an ETA for my country, so one of the larger features that's meant to draw me into 10 isn't even available.

I also have a desktop PC, and in Win8.0 I got used to putting my start bar on the left edge. This worked great with hot corners because I could still click in the bottom left to launch Start as I was accustomed to from 20 years of Windows. In 8.1 they added a superfluous button that moves to the wrong location if the start bar is anywhere except across the bottom (same behaviour as earlier Windows versions), but I was able to hide that with StartIsGone and continue to click the bottom left Hot Corner. I really want my Start button to stay at bottom left. 
A short time ago I got an ultrawide display. The vertical start bar is even more important now because of the sheer size of the wasted area when my start bar is across the bottom. For reference, based on what I have open right now (6 icons) I have a 62x1010 (62,620px) area of wasted empty space with a vertical start bar, or a 2947x40 (117,880px) area of wasted empty space with an horizontal start bar.

Hot Corners are my biggest issue, and probably the one easiest fixed by a third party. Unfortunately it seems I am so fringe in wanting this that no-one has any interest in writing an app to provide this functionality in win10

[neo1911]

Microsoft is collecting so much customer data that I hope their servers become full, then crash ! 

As a token of revenge, I am not entering my hotmail/outlook account details to log into it. Just a local account. I also refuse to buy any app from their App store as they are low grade. All pcs are not some fancy consumption devices. Heck even my consumption devices are running local account. 

The apps from app store have "do not take me seriously" tag written over them.

So yeah, not yet downshifted. Just waiting for that one forced Nvidia driver update that will break my system. Then will FU Microsoft and go back to 8.1.

[Ian W]

As a token of revenge, I am not entering my hotmail/outlook account details to log into it. Just a local account. I also refuse to buy any app from their App store as they are low grade.

I doubt that Microsoft will care.

[Circaflex]

Microsoft is collecting so much customer data that I hope their servers become full, then crash ! 

As a token of revenge, I am not entering my hotmail/outlook account details to log into it. Just a local account. I also refuse to buy any app from their App store as they are low grade. All pcs are not some fancy consumption devices. Heck even my consumption devices are running local account. 

The apps from app store have "do not take me seriously" tag written over them.

So yeah, not yet downshifted. Just waiting for that one forced Nvidia driver update that will break my system. Then will FU Microsoft and go back to 8.1.

but you'll continue to use a google powered phone? makes sense. /s

[neo1911]

^^ Where did I say that I use Google powered phone? Don't put words into my mouth.

[Danielx64]

I join the list of those who downgraded, while there are many features that I like, there are too many issues that I have, and while I can fix most of then, installing updates break or change things without my permission. No driver issues here, just things that I just expect to work out of the box including showing a thumbnail from a mpg video. That work just fine in windows 7.