Downgrading pre-installed windows 11

[asmila]

Hi! 

Just like many others, I'm not a huge fan of Windows 11 that came pre-installed on my new computer. I want to downgrade to Windows 10, which I know is possible through Microsoft's Windows 10 clean install tool. However, I have read that the W11 license doesn't always allow (?) you to downgrade to W10 which can cause problems with the installation if the license isn't compatible. I've tried my best to research this, but I just can't seem to find the information on whether my license will work for Windows 10 or not. Is doing the clean install safe in this situation or not OR how can I find out if my computer's license supports downgrading? 

Thanks!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I'm pretty sure you can install W10 on any PC that comes with W11.

How to downgrade Windows 11 pre-installation to Windows 10 (fast and easy) - Pureinfotech

Many folks on this forum have done it and no one has reported activation issues.

They've reported driver issues, because if the PC came with W11 from HP, there won't be W10 drivers for it on the support page, which means you have to find the drivers elsewhere if W10 doesn't install everything.

You may run into a problem with Windows not finding the drive when you go to install it if your PC has an Intel 11th gen or newer processor.

You can see this discussion for how to normally get past that problem:

Solved: Re: Boot device not found - HP Support Community - 8943308

[asmila]

Thank you!

Okay, so HP computers should have the license, got it! I do have the 12th Gen i5-12400F so I might run into driver issues then... I'll try to go for the downgrade anyways and save the files you posted to the linked conversation just in case! Thank you sm, I'll edit this post with results (or possible problems) afterwards! 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

If you are successful getting W10 installed and have any issues finding drivers, let me know what drivers you need (post the hardware IDs for the devices that need drivers) and I'll see what I can do to help.

How to Find Drivers for Unknown Devices in the Device Manager (howtogeek.com)

There are HP business class desktop PCs with 12th gen core processors that have W10 driver support.

Probably some of the drivers from one of those models would work on yours.