Reverting an activated Windows 8 Toshiba laptop to Windows 7

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I have just acquired a near new Toshiba P50 laptop. These PC's allow the user to choose between W7-64 and W8 when they are first switched on. The previous owner has chosen Windows 8 and this reports as having been activated, but I would prefer to run with Windows 7.

There is a "factory reset" function available which I imagine returns the PC to "out of the box" condition, but does this also allow me to choose Windows 7 and activate that instead, or am I stuck with Windows 8 forever?

rossmcm

Posted 2014-01-02T03:29:10.463

Reputation: 1 328

Are you saying that your laptop is Dual boot-able and you cannot access windows 7? If that's the case you might need to enable windows 7 in your boot manager and then you would be able to open W7. – Hunter – 2014-01-03T15:47:06.540

@Hunter No the laptop is not dual-bootable. In some markets (incl. NZ) they provide the ability to select Win7 instead of Win8 as an operating system, but this choice can only be made when the PC is first started, and the alternate OS is not available once this is done (otherwise I guess they would need to buy 2 OEM licences from MS). My question is whether the factory restore function will allow me to make this choice again. – rossmcm – 2014-01-04T22:50:20.117

In that case no, factory restore will do you nothing good. Windows is installed when you first buy a laptop and if you are given a choice btw windows you can either get only 1 i.e. when you make a choice you are given that windows installed and might be given a windows installation disc. Factory restore cannot bring back an installation that is never installed. So you would need a fresh W7 installation disc from microsoft website or from some friend who has it and then you would be able to install a new copy of Windows 7 on your laptop. – Hunter – 2014-01-05T04:47:39.187

@Hunter, it appears as if you warrant being awarded the answer – rossmcm – 2014-01-12T21:28:58.567

Answers

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No, you'd most likely just need to download the disc from digital river ( microsoft's digital distributor for Win7) See: Where can I download Windows 7 (legally from Microsoft)?

MDT Guy

Posted 2014-01-02T03:29:10.463

Reputation: 3 683

Hmmm.. from what I can see, I'm going to need a product key in order to install Windows 7 from these downloads, and I don't have that. The seller claimed the PC came with no physical media and there is no CoA sticker I can see - the O/S reports the last 5 characters of the product key only.

There is a recovery partition on the drive - presumably this might let me install Windows 7 without needing the download. – rossmcm – 2014-01-02T04:31:19.083

@rossmcm - You are indeed correct. If you want to install Windows 7 you will have to purchase a Windows 7 license key. Your laptop only provides you the rights to install Windows 8. – Ramhound – 2014-01-02T11:58:19.907

The laptop as delivered new provided the right to install W7 or W8 so both images are on the disk. My question is whether I can get back to the point where I can choose via a factory reset. – rossmcm – 2014-01-02T21:55:40.307

Again, I doubt this, get the key, download the disc, and just install windows 7. – MDT Guy – 2014-01-02T22:11:02.930

Asked: 2014-01-02T03:29:10.463

Viewed: 625 times

Active: 2014-11-08T13:02:18.887