Windows 10 downgrade to Win 7

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Hi,

My bro bought a budget HP laptop with Win 10 installed. It has an AMD processor rated at 2.2 GHZ and 4GB Ram.

He hates it. He says it's really slow and I suggested to him I could install win 7 for him.

I took it off him today and it is really slow to start up and with all those automatic updates are really annoying. Otherwise the machine is rather nice, physically.

Installing win 7 ordinarily for me is simples but I see there are some complications I never encountered before. I was hoping to dual-boot it but I've seen there is a complication with something called 'secure boot' and a UEFI.

Is it possible to wipe a harddrive and install Windows 7 on a AMD machine that uses uefi and 'secure boot' and especially use Windows Loader to activeate it.

yoyo

Disable secure boot and UEFI boot in the bios and windows 7 should work/install fine. Make sure there are windows 7 drivers available for the machine also, this could be an issue also. Being honest Windows 7 will not be any quicker than windows 10, if anything 7 would be expected to be a good bit slower.

Nick

riclad

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-ie/library/dn481258.aspx

secure boot is part of the bios,
You have to go into the bios to disable it,
changing the hardrive is not enough ,
There,s ways of disabling the windows update service ,in windows 10.
but this can be risky as it,ll stop security updates

.Or, from Windows, hold the Shift key while selecting Restart. Go to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options: UEFI Firmware Settings.
it might be slow if the cpu is just single core 2.2 .
I Find windows 7 fast ,my cpu is 2.oghz dual core , ram is 4gig.

topmanamillion

I'd be surprise if Win 10 is the problem. It's designed to be faster than previous versions. I use it on my laptop with similar specs and it's fine.

New laptops will require updates at the start.

You could try going into Task Manager and see what programmes are running on start up.
If you spot some you're sure you don't need disable them.
Google this for more information.

You could also set the Internet connection as "metered". Its designed to stop updates from draining bandwidth for people with WiFi allowances.
This will stop some updates and may ease the avalanche of updates.
Again Google metered connections.

You don't actually say how long he has it for?
I presume a few days and it may have picked up a virus so no harm running a virus scan.

Things like disc defragmenter may help too.

It's also worth setting your/your brothers expectations correctly for a budget laptop.
If it's booting in and around 1 min I'd say that's OK.

I wouldn't expect a massive difference by switching to win 7. I've used both on my current laptop.

beauf

It's probably a slow cpu and hard drive.

I find win 10 faster even on 10yr old computers. But it hammers the hard drive. A SSD makes a massive difference.

Not a fan of the updates though.

What's the model no of this laptop.

learn_more

Right so, I read that 'secure boot' cannot be disabled on an AMD processor. But it can if its Intel. No idea here.

As for drivers I've seen there used to be a Win 7 64 bit version of the same lappy, so I'm not too concerned about the drivers.


@topmanamillion It's about 6 months old. EDIT: just seen the 'metered thing'. thanks.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/review/budget-laptops/hp-255-g4-review-3632948/


Since I've posted , I'm actually giving up on the idea of downgrading. I've googled how to turn off the automatic updates and I'm gonna change the START Menu to the classic version. I think it's gonna save me a real headache.

I think it was more the usability he was fu*ked off with. I'll disable the password requirement on logon and disable the startup processes. He won't notice : )

riclad

You can speed up windows by switching off various services ,that are not needed , eg remote diagnostic,
http://www.howtogeek.com/139028/which-windows-services-can-you-safely-disable/
a more detailed guide here .

also switch off cortana .


http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-make-windows-10-faster/
switch off animations and visual effects