If you upgraded to Windows 11 or Windows 10, from Windows 8.1 or Windows 7, the new operating system allows you to rollback Windows 11/10 to your previous version, provided you carry out the rollback operation within 10 days (earlier 30 days). In Windows 10 Anniversary Update v1607 and later, the rollback period has been reduced from 30 days to 10 days. But if you use this trick, you should be able to roll back Windows 11/10 to your previous version, even after the 10-day limit. Let us see how.
After you upgrade to Windows 11/10 you may notice two folders on your System or C Drive named $Windows.~BT and $Windows.~WS. These folders are hidden and are created by Windows, during the upgrade process. To see them, open Folder Options, and set Windows to show hidden and operating system files and folders. You will then be able to see them.
These $Windows.~BT, $Windows.~WS and Windows.old folders are required by the system to perform the rollback operation. After 10 days, Windows 11/10 automatically deletes these folders during Automatic Maintenance. After 10 days, you may not see the option to Rollback in the Settings app or you may receive a message We’re sorry, but you can’t go back.
Roll back Windows 11/10 after 10 days
1] Rename these system folders
What you can do is rename these folders, as soon as you upgrade, and definitely before the 10-day period.
Rename the following folders:
- $Windows.~BT to say Bak-$Windows.~BT
- $Windows.~WS to Bak-$Windows.~WS
- Windows.old to Bak- Windows.old
When you do this, Windows 11/10 will not be able to delete these folders as you will have changed their names.
If you decide to roll back after 10 days, rename these folders back to their original names and visit Settings > Update & Security > Recovery to Go back to Windows 8.1 or Windows 7.
If you wish, you may also backup these 3 folders to an external drive with their original names.
If you do feel the need, you should now be able to roll back even after 30 days. But then you will have to back up your latest data before you carry out the rollback operation.
2] Using PowerShell
Open an elevated instance of PowerShell and run the following command:
DISM /Online /Get-OSUninstallWindow
If Windows.old folder is still present on your system, the number of days remaining for rollback will be displayed.
If you see the following message then it means that the folder has already been deleted and there is nothing you can do:
Error: 1168
Element not found.
The DISM log file can be found at C:\windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log
If Windows.old folder is still present on your system then do the following to extend the period to Go back to the earlier version, execute the following command:
DISM /Online /Set-OSUninstallWindow /Value:60
This will enable the period by 60 days. You can set 30 days or 60 days as per your requirement.
3] Using Registry Editor
If Windows.old folder is still present on your system then, open Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\UninstallWindow
Double-click on UninstallWindow and set the base to Decimal. Finally set the value to a number between 2 and 60. to extend by 2 months, set it at 60.
4] Clean Install Windows
If the Windows.old folder has been deleted, then there is only one method you can use to roll back to Windows 10 or any other version from Windows 11 – by clean or fresh installation. If you do not like the new operating system due to any reason, there is always another way to revert the change. For that, you need to download the ISO from the Microsoft website, create a bootable USB drive, and start the installation.
How do I roll back Windows 11/10 after 10 days?
To roll back Windows 11/10 after 10 days, you have two options. First, you can use the rename method. For that, you need to rename $Windows.~BT, $Windows.~WS, and Windows.old folders. The other method is all about clean installation, which involves data removal.
Read: We’re sorry, but you can’t go back, The files we need to take you back were removed
Can we go back to Windows 10 from Windows 11 after 10 days?
Yes, you can go back to Windows 10 from Windows 11 after 10 days. However, it requires you to clean install Windows 10. Otherwise, there might not be another option if the renaming method doesn’t work. Therefore, it is better to revert to Windows 10 from Windows 11 within 10 days.
This should work – but I cannot guarantee that it will, since I have not tried it! Let us know if this works for you or not.
This post will show you how to go back to an earlier build of Windows. Also learn how to extend the time period to uninstall a Windows 11/10 upgrade.
