HELP URGENTLY! - OS mismatch.

Question

I have hit an ultimate low in my computer illiterate life. I had the dev windows 8 operating system installed on my computer and was proceeding to revert back(ps before i installed win. 8 i backed up and created a restore point.) back to windows vista. i tried to find the restore stored but it had been deleted when i upgraded. so i went into my computer box and took what i thought was my original discs. unfortunately they were windows 7 discs for my desktop. So now i am left with a backup on external hard drive and a computer with unregistered windows 7. I contacted technical support and all they told me was that there were never recovery disks for my model and that because of this i cant restore and would have to pay NZ$120+ for a serial key! is there any other way to get back to vista.

Answer 1

Normally in this scenario, the manufactor has put a hidden partition with the restore bits in there and during start up you need to press a specific key to boot from that rather than from Windows.

Can you share your Make & Model and maybe we can help out?

Just FYI: not really the right place for this discussion, as this isn't about Win8, but let's solve it and then in future you can post to the correct places :)

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Robert MacLean - www.sadev.co.za

Answer 2

Thanks so much, i had nowhere else to go:) The computer is a compaq presario cq60-303au. its running a restore disk from a viewsonic vpc101. hope thats enough info.

Answer 3

Hi ,i am facing the same prob.I installed the Windows developer on my HP mini 210. but i want to revert back to windows 7 .Any suggestions on how to recover.Have tried pressing f11 million times but nothing is happening.Please suggest.

Answer 4

Hi ,i am facing the same prob.I installed the Windows developer on my HP mini 210. but i want to revert back to windows 7 .Any suggestions on how to recover.Have tried pressing f11 million times but nothing is happening.Please suggest.

 It's not the F11 key on every computer.

 

Reinstall Windows Preinstalled On Computer

OEM computer manufacturers are required to provide at least one way for you to reinstall Windows if you buy a computer with Windows preinstalled - your computer should have included either a restore partition on your hard drive, or Windows install/restore disks. Most computer manufacturers also have a feature to make your own install disks.

If the restore partition is still there and was not removed, it will reinstall Windows 7. There is usually a prompt when you first start the computer telling you what key to press to start the restore - check your manual if you're not sure how to. If you have install disks - insert them, restart and boot from them to start the reinstall process. Reinstalling will remove any personal files on the computer, back them up first.


If you don't have the restore partition or install disks:

Contact the OEM computer manufacturer and ask them to send you an install disk for your computer - they may or may not do it. If they agree to send you one they may charge a small fee.

 

 

You could also try attempting this:

Reverting back to a previous Windows system:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/971760

 

 

It is stated on the Windows Developer Preview download page that you must reinstall the previous OS:

Notes about installing the Windows Developer Preview
You can't uninstall the Windows Developer Preview. To reinstall your previous operating system, you must have restore or installation media.

 

Answer 5

According to the documentation you need to press F10 during start up to get to the setup utility and do the restore from there.  

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Robert MacLean - www.sadev.co.za