Downgrading to Windows 10

[llord]

Need to downgrade from Win 11 to 10 for a job.  Where might I find the best instructions and pitfalls for doing this? 

Thank You.

[BeemerBiker]

The following shows how to boot either windows 10 or 11 on the same system.

https://www.xda-developers.com/dual-boot-windows-10-windows-11/

It is complicated and not for beginners and the first time I tried a dual boot (Mac + Windows) I had problems

My first suggestion, if your budget can afford it, is to buy the same size M.2 disk drive and swap it for the one with windows 11.

Follow any instructions for installing windows 10 (the above dual boot show how to get 10).  The license for 10 is same as 11 and your system will be activated.  Any software that came "free" with 11 will not be installed.  Possibly you coiuld contact HP support and ask for a windows 10 release for your system  which should get you similar "free" software.   If you purchased office then your Microsoft account will allow download and re-install on 10.

Documents needed from the original 11 disk can be obtained by using a USB adapter to attach the m.2 to a USB port.

I do not know of any in-place downgrade.  Microsoft provides a rollback feature but after 10 days a clean install of 10 is required.

Sorry.

[WAWood]

@llord 

I have a very different view of this issue ...

HP is not going to provide you a Windows 10 version of anything for a PC that comes with Windows 11 preloaded -- this includes drivers and utilities.  So, looking for that from HP is a waste of time.

In a similar manner, any Recovery Media you could get from HP would also be for Windows 11, not Windows 10.  So, there is no point in trying the HP Cloud Recovery option, as that will do you no good.

While you certainly could try to get Windows 10 from MS, the problem is that it will install only generic MS drivers, not HP drivers, so you then might have problems with the HP hardware after doing that.  So, I would suggest you read the material below about making a driver backup PRIOR to installing any different Windows version:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/68426-backup-restore-device-drivers-windows-10-a.html

And yeah I know the current PC has Win11 drivers, but they should work fine on Windows 10.

The only good news in this is that the product keys for Windows 10 and Windows 11 are likely the same -- so you should not have any activation issues if you force Windows 10 onto this PC -- but you never know, as MS might have changed the rules with Windows 11.