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Downgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 8.1 on ROG laptop.

Horse_in_Pita_Bread
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Hello, I recently purchased an Asus ROG laptop GL502VSK.

It came with Windows 10 Home.

After spending several hours getting rid of bloatware and configuring the OS I had enough.

I can't stand Windows 10 and I would like to downgrade back to 8.1 which is the OS I run on my desktop and old laptop.

 

Will I lose any hardware related functionality from the downgrade?

How can gather all the drivers before I swap or format the harddrive (I haven't decided if I'm going to format or use the opportunity to get a bigger SSD) to make the transition smoother and make sure everything works on windows 8.1?

 

Any advice is appreciated!

HIPB

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well, if you got rid of all the bloatware, why not keep windows 10 and install some tweaks to make it more like Windows 8.1?

The drivers should be found on the website of the manufacturer

 

CPU Intel Core i5 4670, 3.4GHz Motherboard ASRock Z97 Pro4 RAM Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB, 1833Hz GPU AMD Radeon R9 380 4GB OC Case BeQuiet Silent Base 800 Storage Seagate ST2000DX001 SSDH  PSU BeQuiet PurePower L8, 400W Display(s) Samsung 2 x 22" Cooling BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 3 Operating System Windows 10

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3 minutes ago, Horse_in_Pita_Bread said:

Hello, I recently purchased an Asus ROG laptop GL502VSK.

It came with Windows 10 Home.

After spending several hours getting rid of bloatware and configuring the OS I had enough.

I can't stand Windows 10 and I would like to downgrade back to 8.1 which is the OS I run on my desktop and old laptop.

 

Will I lose any hardware related functionality from the downgrade?

How can gather all the drivers before I swap or format the harddrive (I haven't decided if I'm going to format or use the opportunity to get a bigger SSD) to make the transition smoother and make sure everything works on windows 8.1?

As per ASUS official driver support site, there are no drivers for Windows 8.1 or any other OS. Drivers from Windows 10 64 bit should work on Windows 8.1 in theory, but we all know how that goes. https://www.asus.com/us/support/Download/3/871/0/6/eaPJnFEloSqefkMn/45/

 

Before you spend time downgrading, what don't you like about Windows 10? I'm not asking to argue with you - for much the same reasons that everyone held on to Windows XP back in the day I understand one's desire to downgrade. However, Windows 10 takes the modernization of Windows 8.1 and adds the functionality of a real computer from Windows 7 to the OS, so I'm genuinely curious as to why you'd want to downgrade...

Desktop: KiRaShi-Intel-2022 (i5-12600K, RTX2060) Mobile: OnePlus 5T | Koodo - 75GB Data + Data Rollover for $45/month
Laptop: Dell XPS 15 9560 (the real 15" MacBook Pro that Apple didn't make) Tablet: iPad Mini 5 | Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 10.1
Camera: Canon M6 Mark II | Canon Rebel T1i (500D) | Canon SX280 | Panasonic TS20D Music: Spotify Premium (CIRCA '08)

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i see that your laptop CPU has a 7th gen Intel Core i series CPU. Windows 10 is the minimum supported OS for this CPU.

 

What don't you like about Windows 10? Maybe we can help you customize the experience with the various OS options, to make it more enjoyable for you.

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I heard there was a patch that allows windows 8.1 to run on Kaby Lake processors.

 

What I don't like about Win10:

Looks and feels (easily tweaked, but takes time).

Tons of registry tweaks to make to get rid of all telemetry and MS spying BS.

No manual control over windows update to decide which updates to install.

Can't uninstall Edge and Cortana.

Way worse control over the general system setting.

No bitlocker.

Notification center.

Generally way less transparency to the user than 8.1.

 

So yeah, it might be possible to get Win10 to run the way I want it too, but is it worth it to spend hours rather than make a clean install?

Also my Win8.1 is ultimate edition while the Win10 is home edition.

 

 

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You'd need new key anyway. There are tweaks to get hardware support working besides that.

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2 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

You'd need new key anyway. There are tweaks to get hardware support working besides that.

I have a win8.1 ultimate key, any links you can post to get everything working?

 

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33 minutes ago, Horse_in_Pita_Bread said:

I have a win8.1 ultimate key, any links you can post to get everything working?

 

Maybe when I get back home. Meanwhile, its easy search for Win8.1 Skylake patch. It was article on known news site.

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Just now, LoGiCalDrm said:

Maybe when I get back home. Meanwhile, its easy search for Win8.1 Skylake patch. It was article on known news site.

I know about the Skylake/Kaby lake patch, but I'm more worried about other pieces of dedicated laptop hardware working properly.

Stuff like the webcam, touchpad, sound card, wireless network and bluetooth, etc. etc.

 

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1 hour ago, Horse_in_Pita_Bread said:

I know about the Skylake/Kaby lake patch, but I'm more worried about other pieces of dedicated laptop hardware working properly.

Stuff like the webcam, touchpad, sound card, wireless network and bluetooth, etc. etc.

 

You can look drivers for those directly from sub-manufacturers. Like VIA, RealTek and so on.

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  • 2 months later...
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So I wanted to update that the downgrade went mostly OK, everything is working well, most win10 drivers from ASUS website worked also on 8.1 and those who don't, which was only " Intel® Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Drive" I chose some other random laptop model that had this under 8.1 in the driver download page and installed it, and everything is running great and updates are installing properly

:)

F*ck Win10!

The only thing that really annoys me in this laptop is that there's no "end" key.

I will have to rebind it to some other key.

 

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Nice.

 

Do keep in mind that support for 8.1 ends on January 10th, 2023.  At that point you'll have to switch to Win10 anyway, or to Linux.

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