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Question

How can I restore Win7 settings after a Win8 install attempt

Mar 18, 2016 6:44AM PDT

When trying to install Visio 2013, a Windows 8 installation automatically started; telling me not to shutdown my computer. Thus my own automatic reaction of pulling the plug.
Unfortunately, some aspects of Win7 appear to be broken, including the spell check, macro functions (ie. can't load normal.dotm or normal.docm), and Outlook functionality.
I would like, dearly, to recover these settings. I do not, upon any circumstances, wish to have to upgrade.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: Windows 8 installation
Mar 18, 2016 7:50AM PDT

That's VERY, VERY uncommon, if not to IMPOSSIBLE, that a Windows 8 installation is initiated from a Visio 2013 disk (or diskimage) or setup program.
A Windows 8 installation disk is 2 GB or more. A Visio 2013 setup is some 500 MB (see filehippo.com/download_visio_professional/).

Shutting down the PC after being told not to do it, is not a very good idea.
Thing to try for a fix:
1. System restore back to when it still worked.
2. A repair install of your MS Office suite.
3. Redo the installation of Visio.

If no luck with any of the three, go back to your latest image backup or to factory conditions.

Kees

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Answer
Re: Windows 8 installation
Mar 24, 2016 5:43AM PDT

That's very odd that your laptop would automatically install Win 8 unless you're on SCCM...

Regardless, what do we do now that your computer is a bit scattered? Well in my eyes you have three options: Repair, Re-Image, or Re-install.

Repairing is probably the best, as you might be able to run repairs on Windows to fix the damaged sectors caused by the botched installation. You can download the recovery media from the MS website.

Re-Imaging will also work, but this is also heavily reliant on the idea that you have a disk image to re-image to.

Finally there's the Re-installation option. You can download the Win 7 ISO from the MS website and completely re-install the OS. This will cause you to lose your data, but it's also the surefire way to get you up and running again.

You might want to look into a backup solution like disk imaging, or even a snapshot tool like Comodo Time Machine or Rollback Rx. Sounds like you need something!