I've installed Windows 8 Pro on a particular computer, but may decide to do a clean install back to Windows 7, and was wondering if anyone knows whether the installation will save my personal files to a "Windows.old" folder just as it does any time I'm clean installing 7 from an existing 7, Vista or XP OS? M$ would have to be quite the a**holes if they disabled this option for users trying to downgrade to 7.
I would think it would but of course it's too dangerous for me to assume. Always make a backup, at least of your personal files. If you're looking for the easiest most obvious method, just copy the contents of your user folder (including sub-folders such as Contacts, My Documents, et cetera). You don't have to have the AppData folder most likely although with some programs there's a chance there may be data files there you would want (example: Microsoft Outlook, unless it changed where it keeps it's email files by default - I forget). Copy the folders to an external drive or to another free partition on the same hard drive. I'm surprised but I just tried running the Windows 7 SP1 Windows Easy Transfer from the x64 DVD mounted in Windows 8 Enterprise x64 (in the folder H:\support\migwiz, where H: is your optical drive or your virtual mounted optical drive letter) and it launches fine so I hope it runs just fine, too. Either launch migsetup or migwiz; it doesn't seem to matter which for me in the past. Then, again, use it to save all your personal files elsewhere, then reinstall Windows 7 (always best to just re-format the drive anyway), then run Windows Easy Transfer again and import your personal files if it worked from 8 in the first place.