Windows 10 has an option for people who upgraded from Windows 7 or 8.1 that allows them to rollback to the earlier operating system, but this has to be done within 30 days, at which point the windows.old folder is automatically deleted.
- Click “Start” and “Settings” or press the Windows key + i. This takes you to the Settings screen.
- Click “Update and Security”.
- Choose the “Recovery” option.
- Choose one of the options under “What isn’t working for you” and click “Next”. Several warning screens will pop up. Just click “Next” after reading them.
- When you reach the screen that says “Thank you for trying Windows 10” choose “Go Back”.
- Windows 10 will now restart and restore your previous version of Windows. This may take several hours.
Note that if you did a custom install of Windows 10, the recovery option doesn’t work. Since Windows 10 can only be installed by custom install over versions of Windows earlier that Windows 10 (such as Vista, XP or NT), you cannot roll back to those versions.