Transforming Windows 8 into Windows 7! - Win8to7 Demo

Thank you michael for demoing my 8to7 project and mentioning the backend! it was great making it with dominic and i hope everyone testing it is having a good time. i have to clarify some stuff about the pack. The setup checks if your OS has updates to install to prevent people bricking their systems because they had an out of date version of 8 or 8.1 that happened before with the first release of the automatic setup. The taskbar jumplists being broken are an issue with 8.0 themes on 8.1 because of microsoft changing how they handled them. SIB silently fixes the issue that it was too late to find a solution to fix it for the open shell option. 7+TT is preinstalled on 8.1 for fixing the show desktop button size being too small compared to 7's one. The start screen color gets changed to a cyan color to be closely as possible to the login screen color used by 7 in RDP mode. The "Use Windows 7 File Copying dialog" option mentions that it will break metro applications installation because microsoft tried to stop people from modding windows and succeeded as normally shell32 can't be modified as it results in a bsod. but with some clever methods we got it to work with some caviats mentioned above. With the change of color for the start screen, the pack includes some tweaked live tiles for system apps (as an example: store and PC settings) to have a beta look instead of the RTM look.

This has to be one of the best transformation packs i have ever seen, it almost feels like i'm using Windows 7 again!

Wow this is really cool, wish it was that easy for Windows 10, I love how windows vista and 7 look like

My goodness, this has got to be the most well done system reskin / transformation pack / whatever you want to call it I've ever seen. If I were to ignore the "Aero Glass for Win8.1" text on the desktop and some inconsistencies (Some barely noticeable and some definitely apparent.) I would probably be convinced you were using Windows 7 the whole time.

It would be interesting if Windows Media Center had a dedicated history/retrospective video in the future since it is one of Microsoft's most obscure programs. Your videos are always entertaining and keep up the great work! I am also quite excited for the video of that Windows 7 anime DVD you got several months back.

I used this a week ago and found almost no bugs using this. Props to the creators, what an amazing project to have

My first computer that I ever had was running DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1, and I've daily driven almost every major version of Windows released since then at some point - except 8.x. So I keep forgetting it ever existed, lol XD Ironically, the only proper physical retail copy of Windows that I own is 8.1. In the early years I used to live in a time and place where pirating stuff was the norm, then I bought two laptops with OEM preinstalls of Vista and 7, respectively, and then when building a desktop I wanted to have a legit copy of Windows, and I found that copy of 8.1 for a good price - but it was the period of time when official free upgrades to 10 were a thing, and my plan was always to do that free upgrade on day 1.

I remember finding a REALLY good and complete theme pack for Windows 8.1 that transformed it to 7 all the way back in 2018, but at some point the links were taken down and it was no longer accessible to download. I'm glad a similar (and better) project like this now exists :D I'm definitely trying it out on my portable Windows 8.1 installation today.

I know the person who made this very well. The two guys who made it are very friendly and help with issues regarding the program!

I’m still confused on why Michael has only 300k subscribers. He really deserves more attention, truly my favourite tech man

We need this for Windows 11/10.

I used this for a while back when it was on an older version! Honestly hands down my favourite transformation pack

Michael, This was a really good video to take a trip down memory lane with an older OS👍🏻. It was also REALLY GOOD to see Windows 7 again because I kind of liked that OS👍🏻.

Love your videos, keep up the good work!

That's actually very cool. Definitely going to use it on my old Win 8 PC.

Hey Micheal. I love your videos and you are truly awesome. Also thanks for this awesome content. :)

Great work for both of you - @MichaelMJD & the Developer! However... Who needs this when almost nobody uses Win8 anymore? Would be great to see a similar solution for Win 10. The would be just awsome!!

Wow, this pack looks so well!

For someone like me who still installs Windows 8.1 on VERY budget rigs, this is a very nice mod for people who still prefer the UI from Windows 7

It clearly shows that the transformations are improving