Guide from Upgrading to Windows 10 from a Windows 11 machine

[Raptor2213]

Writing this as a solution to anyone who encountered the same issue I did.

I recently purchased a 2023 Victus HP gaming laptop and wanted to upgrade it from Windows 11 to Windows 10.  No, that isn't a typo.  Windows 10 is an upgrade from 11, since Windows 11 is inferior in every way to 10.

It seems that HP has incorrectly coded their drivers and HP Support Assistant to not find any drivers for some of their newer products if you're running Windows 10.  If you encounter this issue, this should resolve it for you.

1. Install Windows 11 (if not already installed).
2. Go to the driver page for your device - for me it was here.
3. Download every single driver on this page.  It will download files named something like: sp######.exe.  Technically, you don't need all of them, but if you're unsure which ones you need, it doesn't hurt to grab extras.
4. Install 7-Zip.
5. Right-click on the executable files you downloaded and extract them to a sub-folder.
6. Copy these extracted files to an external drive.
7. Do a clean install of Windows 10 using Microsoft's media creation tool.
8. After installing the OS, I had to plug in an external mouse because the touchpad drivers were not found.  Skip this step if this works for you.  My wireless card was also not working, but this fixed itself once I connected to the internet via ethernet (wired).
9. Open Device Manager.
10. Right click on any of the 'unknown' devices.
11. Select "Update Driver"
12. Select "Browse My Computer"
13. Point it at the external drive you copied all those folders to, make sure you check the box to include subfolders, and click next/finish until it installs.
14. Repeat from step 10 until you have no more unknown devices.

Optional: Open a ticket with HP and request that they publish devices for Windows 10 as well.