June 6, 2025
If you shop for a new PC today, the odds are overwhelming that it will be preinstalled with Windows 11. In the retail channel, you won't find any Windows 10 PCs, unless they're surplus/overstock models built two or three years ago that didn't sell. Even in the enterprise market, you'll find only Windows 11 PCs.
If you really don't like Windows 11, can you buy one of those new PCs and downgrade it to Windows 10?
Although you can easily upgrade a Windows 10 PC to Windows 11, preserving installed apps, settings, and data files, you can't do the reverse. If you want to 'downgrade' from Windows 11 to Windows 10, you have to do a clean install, which requires backing up and restoring your data files and reinstalling all your apps. But your license for Windows 11 will suffice to activate Windows 10 (and vice versa), which means you'll still have the option to upgrade to Windows 11 later, after Microsoft has (one hopes) fixed the things that are annoying you right now.
If your new PC comes with Windows 11 preinstalled, you might think twice about whether you really want to go to these lengths. You may encounter glitches and hardware incompatibilities when you install Windows 10, and those problems might be even more annoying than whatever issues you have with Windows 11. You'll also forfeit any support rights you have with the PC maker.
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