Upgrading BACK to Windows 11 on HP ENVY 17.3 inch PC 17-ch1000 that had been rolled back to Win 10

[AspenQn]

Hello.  Question that is a little complicated.  I have a HP ENVY 17.3 inch Laptop PC 17-ch1000 that originally came with Windows 11 Home but after a very serious issue with OneDrive which HP/Microsoft/IT Tech Repair could not identify nor fix it was decided that I should probably be best served by a reinstall of my OS.  My local IT Tech guy suggested a clean install and rollback to Windows 10 with a local account and that is what he did.

Fast forward 18 months and now we're getting close to the end of life of Windows 10 and I'm thinking about upgrading back to Windows 11 but with a local account.  However because of the issues I had before I'm not even certain if Windows 11 still resides in a partition somewhere on my SSD or if I should do a clean reinstall of Windows 11 or just try to "upgrade" to Windows 11.  My IT repair guy still says to wait it out and see what happens with Windows 10 end of life but I want to be proactive and prepared.

Can someone please help steer me in the right direction or at least have me asking the right questions?  The only thing I know for sure is that I do NOT want any part of OneDrive moving forward.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Since your IT guy clean installed W10, there shouldn't be remnants of W11 on the drive.

If the update to W11 24H2 is not showing up in Windows Update, I would try the in-place upgrade from W10 > W11 by clicking on the blue Windows 11 Installation Assistant button at the link below (1st option).

That way you can keep all of your programs, files and settings that you have now on W10.

Download Windows 11

If you don't want to have anything to do with Microsoft One Drive (I just don't synch to OneDrive, closed OneDrive on the right side of the taskbar, ran MSConfig and disabled one Drive in the Task Manager program.

You also have the more draconian option to completely uninstall OneDrive in the Windows control panel>programs>uninstall a program.

I suppose you can always download it again from the Microsoft Store should you ever need it in the future.

With the in-place upgrade, you have 10 days to easily go back to W10 if things don't work right on W11 for some reason as long as you don't delete the upgrade files or the Windows.old folder.

How to Downgrade from Windows 11 to Windows 10

[AspenQn]

Thank you so much for this info.  One additional but important question.  Does upgrading using the link give me the option to upgrade using a local account instead of my Microsoft account?  

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Yes, if you are using a local account, when you do the in-place upgrade by either Windows Update or the method I posted, you will be logged into W11 with your local account after the upgrade.

I always set up local accounts in W10 & W11 and in the future, should you need to clean install W11, use the info at the link below for how to bypass the requirement to connect to a network or set up the PC with a Microsoft account:

How to bypass internet connection to install Windows 11 - Pureinfotech

The above method works regardless of if you have a network connection or not.

[AspenQn]

I finally have the time to sit down and try to run the Win 11 upgrade but yesterday saw a notice that Microsoft has done away with or is in the process of trying to do away with installs using only a local account.  Do you know if this has taken place?

Also you mentioned:

"If you don't want to have anything to do with Microsoft One Drive (I just don't synch to OneDrive, closed OneDrive on the right side of the taskbar, ran MSConfig and disabled one Drive in the Task Manager program."

Can you please provide specific detailed instructions on how to do this?  I'm just leery of even touching anything remotely associated with OneDrive after my fiasco!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Microsoft can make it difficult not to set up Windows using a local account, but that is only on clean installs of the operating system, and I have already given you the process to get around that if you need to clean install W11 in the future.

One drive...there are several links out there for how to disable or uninstall one drive.

This is the official link from Microsoft.

Turn off, disable, or uninstall OneDrive - Microsoft Support

[AspenQn]

Thank you.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Please post back and let us know how the upgrade back to W11 went for you.