neufuse Veteran Posted March 20, 2017 Veteran Share Posted March 20, 2017 I have a tablet that came with windows 10 home, with its OEM key stored in the UEFI (no sticker of course with a key) I did the windows anytime upgrade using a MSDN key to test something but I need to go back to home since it's going back into production use not testing... How exactly can you downgrade a windows edition? Or do I somehow have to reinstall this? doing the system recovery built into windows only takes me back to pro windows 10... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted March 20, 2017 Supervisor Share Posted March 20, 2017 Hello, This is the technique I use for upgrading the edition of an already-installed Windows 10 installation. Hopefully, it will work for a downgrade as well: Try opening an elevated Command Prompt (filename: CMD.EXE) and issuing a wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey command to obtain the product ID key stored in the UEIF/BIOS firmware. Then run Windows Activation (filename: CHANGEPK.EXE) and enter the product ID key. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 21, 2017 Author Veteran Share Posted March 21, 2017 2 hours ago, goretsky said: Hello, This is the technique I use for upgrading the edition of an already-installed Windows 10 installation. Hopefully, it will work for a downgrade as well: Try opening an elevated Command Prompt (filename: CMD.EXE) and issuing a wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey command to obtain the product ID key stored in the UEIF/BIOS firmware. Then run Windows Activation (filename: CHANGEPK.EXE) and enter the product ID key. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky ah, thanks, I will have to give that a try in a little Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahorsepip Veteran Posted March 21, 2017 Veteran Share Posted March 21, 2017 In the past I used to set the edition value in the registry to a lower version then the version I wanted to downgrade to, then I restarted and "upgraded" with anytime upgrade to the version I wanted. But I guess that's not going to work since windows 10 only has a home and pro version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 21, 2017 Author Veteran Share Posted March 21, 2017 well it gives me they key, but change product key tells me the product key entered didn't work try a different one..... ugh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 22, 2017 Author Veteran Share Posted March 22, 2017 Since I cant seem to downgrade the key...... do you still need an OEM ISO to reinstall with an OEM key? or did that finally go away? I could easily reinstall with the windows 10 ISO and select home, but if I can't use my OEM key that would just waste my time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted March 22, 2017 Supervisor Share Posted March 22, 2017 Hello, If you wipe the tablet's internal storage, boot from the Windows 10 installation ISO you downloaded from Microsoft and install Windows 10 and do not connect to a network during installation, the installer will install the version of Windows licensed using the OA3 PID key. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 22, 2017 Author Veteran Share Posted March 22, 2017 7 hours ago, goretsky said: Hello, If you wipe the tablet's internal storage, boot from the Windows 10 installation ISO you downloaded from Microsoft and install Windows 10 and do not connect to a network during installation, the installer will install the version of Windows licensed using the OA3 PID key. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky well I tried that last night, and I can't get the darn tablet to boot from USB... even in the windows restore screen selecting boot from USB device only gives me boot to UEFI shell ugh... driving me nuts... got into the bios of the thing and can't find any USB boot device options, only windows boot manager,,, secure boot is disabled too... of course the thing only has one USB port on it (micro usb) so I have to put it into a USB HUB to get keyboard and USB at the same time... even with the USB storage device attached straight to the port can't get it to recognize it as a boot device... really scratching my head right now on this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PGHammer Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 56 minutes ago, neufuse said: well I tried that last night, and I can't get the darn tablet to boot from USB... even in the windows restore screen selecting boot from USB device only gives me boot to UEFI shell ugh... driving me nuts... got into the bios of the thing and can't find any USB boot device options, only windows boot manager,,, secure boot is disabled too... of course the thing only has one USB port on it (micro usb) so I have to put it into a USB HUB to get keyboard and USB at the same time... even with the USB storage device attached straight to the port can't get it to recognize it as a boot device... really scratching my head right now on this... I will wager that secure boot is enabled in UEFI; check for that first. If that is the case, turn it off and repeat. (Most OEMs have secure boot enabled by default on UEFI hardware - this includes HP, Dell, ASUS, etc.) In addition, check to see is USB boot is also turned off - some UEFI firmware has a separate switch for USB blockage; this is usually true of portables, such as notebooks. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 22, 2017 Author Veteran Share Posted March 22, 2017 9 minutes ago, PGHammer said: I will wager that secure boot is enabled in UEFI; check for that first. If that is the case, turn it off and repeat. (Most OEMs have secure boot enabled by default on UEFI hardware - this includes HP, Dell, ASUS, etc.) In addition, check to see is USB boot is also turned off - some UEFI firmware has a separate switch for USB blockage; this is usually true of portables, such as notebooks. well, as I said in my comment above that you quoted, secure boot is disabled... I can't find anything in the UEFI settings for USB boot anywhere... went through every page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Circaflex Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 How did you create the windows 10 media? Ensure the USB is formatted fat32 and not NTFS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted March 23, 2017 Supervisor Share Posted March 23, 2017 Hello, You may also want to check with the device manufacturer for specific steps on how to re-install Windows 10. I seem to recall that some tablets have Intel Atom chipsets which are 64-bit, but for which no 64-bit drivers exist. For those 64-bit devices, only 32-bit editions of Windows can be installed. Usually not a big deal because of the lack of system RAM (1-2GB) but still kind of annoying. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 23, 2017 Author Veteran Share Posted March 23, 2017 23 hours ago, Circaflex said: How did you create the windows 10 media? Ensure the USB is formatted fat32 and not NTFS. Windows 10 USB creation took, but it didn't like that so I went the Rufus way and made it myself and found the way to boot from USB isn't called what you think it would be in the UEFI settings... it's called "Override boot"... ugh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erpster3 Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, neufuse said: Windows 10 USB creation took, but it didn't like that so I went the Rufus way and made it myself and found the way to boot from USB isn't called what you think it would be in the UEFI settings... it's called "Override boot"... ugh Using Rufus is 10x better than using the Win10 media creation tool. There's a crucial setting in Rufus in the "Partition scheme and target system type" section of the program; on modern UEFI based systems, this needs to be set to GPT partition scheme for UEFI because many pre-installed Windows 8.x & 10 systems have a hard drive partition set up for GPT. Once the Win10 USB install media is formatted thru Rufus using the GPT scheme, your computer should recognize the Win10 USB installation drive. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorD Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 I actually used the online help from MS they took my computer over and they did it for me "lazy way" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 23, 2017 Author Veteran Share Posted March 23, 2017 1 hour ago, erpster3 said: Using Rufus is 10x better than using the Win10 media creation tool. There's a crucial setting in Rufus in the "Partition scheme and target system type" section of the program; on modern UEFI based systems, this needs to be set to GPT partition scheme for UEFI because many pre-installed Windows 8.x & 10 systems have a hard drive partition set up for GPT. Once the Win10 USB install media is formatted thru Rufus using the GPT scheme, your computer should recognize the Win10 USB installation drive. yep, GPT table was what fixed it, the windows 10 tool created a MBR partition it appears and the boot options in windows and the UEFI didn't see that as a bootable device Circaflex 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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