Problem reverting back to Windows 10 after Windows 11 upgrade - Surface Laptop 3

[GeekGirlInFurs]

Hi. I have a Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (i7, 16Gb, 1Tb, 13") that was recently reset to a new install of Windows 11 Pro. W11 is working fine, but for various reasons I'd like to run Windows 10 Pro instead. I am having difficulty getting the "downgrade" to work. Here is what I have tried to do.

I have USB ISOs of both W10 and W11. I also have a Macrium Reflect image of the working W11 installation, so it can be restored. I set the device to restart from USB. I restart.

With the W10 USB ISO inserted, the installation process starts just as expected. BUT: the device is nonresponsive to input from its keyboard, touchpad, and touchscreen. (Both worked fine under W11. So the physical hardware isn't the issue.) I power down the device by holding the power key.

I plug in a USB hub with a kb and trackball attached. I start the device. The attached kb/tb work fine, but the native inputs still get no response. I complete the W10 set up (bypassing the MS account and using only a local account) and finally get into W10. The native inputs still do not work. I reboot. Same thing.

SO: I set the device to boot into the Macrium Reflect environment, restarted it, successfully restored the W11 system image (which is stored on another partition of this 1Tb SSD.)

After being restored, W11 appears to be working perfectly. So no harm was done. BUT: I don't want to use W11! For reasons I'd be glad to go into. But for now: Any idea why the W10 install process would not respond to native input devices? Even after W10 is fully set up it still didn't see input from its own kb and touchpad and touchscreen? But W11 works perfectly.

I have experienced something like this before with (I think it was) a Surface Laptop 2, but after using the USB kb to get through the setup, everything worked fine. I own a few other Surfaces all running W10 Pro.

The Surface Laptop 3 shipped with W10 when new. I think the firmware might have been upgraded when the device was upgraded to W11 - I am not the original owner. Could that be the issue? Is it possible to downgrade a firmware update?

All suggestions appreciated.

Thank you!

[stuck]

I can't help you with your main request, to revert to Win 10 Pro. I don't even need to know why you want to revert to Win 10 but like it or not, Win 11 and/or whatever comes after that, is the future. I had to buy a new laptop recently and although I could have got one with Win 10 that was, in theory, upgradable to Win 11 I decided to learn to love live with Win 11 from the word go.

Ken

[GeekGirlInFurs]

Thank you for the reply. I know Windows 11 is the future and it is as close to certain as it can be that I will eventually end up using it. But for now, I am running 5 other Windows devices on my home network, all are running Windows 10 Pro, each has some access to each of the others, and all are set up the same way with my preferred setting/options/work environment. While Win 11 works just fine with the Win 10 devices, some things affect the work environment just negatively enough, and are important enough to me, that I'm opting for the cross-device consistency of using Windows 10, than for whatever benefits there might be to Windows 11. Either way, you learn to love hate live with whichever Windows you're using. My preference is to postpone moving to a new Windows version for as long as practical.