Surface Laptops can go from Windows 10 Pro back to S in a few simple steps

By Jon Martindale Published June 23, 2017

Surface Laptop First Impressions — Adam Balkin/Digital Trends

If you’ve upgraded your Microsoft Surface Laptop to Windows 10 Pro but don’t find yourself actually needing the added functionality of the fully fledged operating system, you can now downgrade back to Windows 10 S without too much hassle. All you have to do is back up your personal information and then download and run the newly available recovery image.

Although Microsoft released the Surface Laptop with Windows 10 S installed as standard, Microsoft took an approach similar to its original release of Windows 10 and offered a free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro for all owners in 2017. However, while the Pro version of the OS does have the ability to install non-Windows store apps and a few other advantages, its efficiency isn’t quite so strong, so reverting back to the original OS does have its advantages.

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Some Surface owners have found that Pro just isn’t for them, so Microsoft has a Windows 10 S Surface recovery image that can now be downloaded from the Microsoft support site.

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If you want to take a stab at it yourself, you’ll want to make sure you back up all of your personal files, as the recovery system does wipe your drive and start from scratch. You’ll also need 9GB of space for the recovery image, so make sure you have a spare USB drive or external storage solution handy.

For those a little nervous about the procedure, don’t fret — you can always contact Microsoft support for direct help. However, as MSPowerUser points out, there are also a few helpful tips and hints on the support site itself, which walk you through the process from start to finish.

You can also check out our very own guide on how to reinstall Windows 10, which will help fix any problems you might have along the way. We’ll walk you through the whole process, from the best ways to back up your files right through to reactivation.

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Evergreen writer

Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…

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