Long story short: a Windows 11 upgrade has broken a key feature of an industry-specific software I need for work. It's unlikely that the software vendor will fix it anytime soon. The feature still works under Windows 10.

I do not give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut for online vulnerabilities, as the PC involved will not be online.

I intend to nuke and pave the Windows PC, and reinstall Windows 10. I assume I'll have to get a license.

Has anyone here done this, and what problems did you encounter?

You're going to have a real bad time. good luck to you.

How long ago did you 'upgrade'? You 'should' be able to go back to 'old Windows' if it hasn't been too long (10 days?).

If that's not an option, you should be able to do an 'in-place upgrade' using Windows 10 installation media to get back to Windows 10.

There's NO need to 'Nuke and Pave' in this situation, and you'd be able to retain all of your settings and installed software applications by either going back to 'old Windows' or using the 'in-place upgrade' method.

Have you tried running this software under Compatibility Mode? There’s a Compatibility Mode setting to tell a piece of software to run as if the machine were Win10.

Before you do the nuke and pave, you can try running Windows 10 on the 11 machine as a virtual machine and just not activate it.

It will not let you make personal setting changes and will display "Activate Windows" on the lower right and you will get "nag screens", but your app should work.

It may or may not be a hassle to do this, but it may be an option for you.

If you need specific help, let me know and I can provide my phone number.

(At the same low SIGforum member pricing of $Free.00 dollars. That's a bargain, even in dog money.)

Are you the company's IT or you are it since there isn't one? If you do have an IT team, hand it over to them before you get that PC to a unrecoverable situation. Another resource is the software vendor. Does not hurt to ask. You are probably not the first and definitely wont the last to be in that pickle.

Your IT professional would rather you approached them at the onset of the problem then "unfuck" all the associated issues on top of the initial problem. Just from my experience.

We are having severe issues with this new "upgrade".

I want Windows 7 back.

We have a few machines that are still on Win10, due to software being unconfirmed compatible with W11.
We have a mass spec that is still on W7, because the software for it won't work on anything post-W7.

We just disable all network connectivity on them, and any data tfr has to be done via flash drives.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
We are having severe issues with this new "upgrade".

I want Windows 7 back.

I still have Win 7 on all my personal stuff. It's so far out of support that it's starting to cause some problems, as applications I use pretty regularly can't update. The day is rapidly approaching when I'm going to have to upgrade. I'm not excited about it .

Like others here, I have experienced problems created by Windows 11 and its numerous updates. Software and hardware (scanner, for example) have stopped connecting or otherwise working.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
We are having severe issues with this new "upgrade".

I want Windows 7 back.

^^
I have a good friend whose side business is installing and fixing PCs, and he tells me Win11 is his best salesperson, between fixing the bricked ones from mandatory updates, and the people wanting to go back to Win 10 once they've experienced the 'joy' that is Win 11.

There was nothing compelling in 10, and 11 is worse.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
I have a good friend whose side business is installing and fixing PCs, and he tells me Win11 is his best salesperson, between fixing the bricked ones from mandatory updates, and the people wanting to go back to Win 10 once they've experienced the 'joy' that is Win 11.

There was nothing compelling in 10, and 11 is worse.

Great.

I'm being forced to buy a new computer even though I like my Lenovo W520 Win 10 Pro machine.
My broker-dealer tells me I must have Windows 11 and 'upgrade' for security, of course.

We have the same issues at our plant.
Each line has a PC cart which runs Win7 in VMware virtual machine for some engineering programs that don¡t work on Win10 and won¡t be updated.
We also have 2 shared PC carts running Win 2000 for one specific program that doesn’t like to run in the VM for whatever reason. They are rarely needed and are never connected too the network or the internet.
Compatibility mode sounds much better then it actually works.

I recall reading that most ATMs ran an ancient Windows version.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I recall reading that most ATMs ran an ancient Windows version.

NT4?

^^^^^^^^
google query: “Do ATMs use Windows?”

AI Overview
“Yes, the majority of ATMs run on Windows, often a specialized version like Windows 10 IoT, though many older ATMs still use legacy versions such as Windows 7 or even Windows XP. While the specific version varies, using Microsoft's Windows operating system is common in the ATM industry. …”

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I recall reading that most ATMs ran an ancient Windows version.

NT4?

Windows CE, probably.

There is no IT department to push this off onto.

The vendor of the software that Win11 broke used to be responsive, back when it was locally owned. Now they're pathetic.

I'm going to try the suggested compatibility mode first. Then I'm going to try the suggested Virtual Machine route. IF neither work, then I'll probably try a different suggestion - buy a cheap used PC with Win10 already installed on it, keep it offline, and use it only when I need the broken feature. The business software with the broken feature is via a site license, so no added cost there, and I won't use the Win10 PC for anything except that feature.

Thanks for all the replies, ideas, and advice!

Did 11 get pushed via an automatic update or was it always on the machine? I had my computer auto install windows 11 before I realized what was going on. I was able to revert back 1 update/backup cycle and it went back to Windows 10.

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I recall reading that most ATMs ran an ancient Windows version.

NT4?

Windows CE, probably.

Many ran OS/2 well into the 2000’s.