A long, long time ago I was Windows 10 beta tester. When Microsoft offered the upgrade for free, I built Windows 10 systems for all three of the computers that I had at the time. I saved a system image of Windows 10 and put the Windows 7 Pro system image back on each of the machines.

I am happily running Windows 7 Pro on my latest video workstation.

There's a pony in that large pile of anecdotal horse crap that I just shared. You'll find it if you look hard enough.

Typed on my wife's laptop running Windows 10 Professional.

A long, long time ago I was Windows 10 beta tester. When Microsoft offered the upgrade for free, I built Windows 10 systems for all three of the computers that I had at the time. I saved a system image of Windows 10 and put the Windows 7 Pro system image back on each of the machines.

I am happily running Windows 7 Pro on my latest video workstation.

There's a pony in that large pile of anecdotal horse crap that I just shared. You'll find it if you look hard enough.

Typed on my wife's laptop running Windows 10 Professional.

Yesterday the guy from the computer hardware store that I trust to know more about hardware than I do told me I basically wouldn't even been able to run windows 7 on my latest hardware I bought there because the Ryzen 1700 CPU is not supported by it, and I would get warnings about that constantly. My experience with the 'win 10 free upgrade' is exactly the same: I went back to win 7 two times after trying that, because the upgrade would simply not work in a decent way, it would use lots of resources for vague processes etc. But once I did a clean install I was pretty satisfied with it up until a few weeks ago when the blue screen errors started at random intervals. But the hardware guy assured me this is not hardware related but it has to do with something Microsoft did in their recent 'updates', that others have it too and that we can only hope they fix it in the next updates....

Your guy from the computer hardware store is likely correct that Microsoft and others will not support Windows 7 on new hardware over time. That's why I haven't attempted to load Windows 7 on my wife's laptop (even though she asks me how to do some mundane task on WIndows 10 every time she uses it).

Here's what I see as the root cause of your problem. Given that "it has to do with something Microsoft did in their recent 'updates' ", are you going to let Microsoft come in the middle of the night, break your system and leave you to search for a solution that may not be written yet? 

I used the phrase system image twice in my response. 

What would you do if this happened?

 

Yesterday the guy from the computer hardware store that I trust to know more about hardware than I do told me I basically wouldn't even been able to run windows 7 on my latest hardware I bought there because the Ryzen 1700 CPU is not supported by it, and I would get warnings about that constantly.

If you really wanted win7 you should google about ryzen compatibility. I do recall You need to make your own slipstreamed win7 iso which includes USB drivers for your motherboard. Because microsoft only release security updates for win7, there is no support for Ryzen motherboards but from memory the only problem people had was with having no connectivity with usb ports.

My info is from last year, maybe there's been positive or negative progression as far as win7 & ryzen.

A year ago I had this problem with version 15. After upgrade to version 16 I haven't had this problem anymore for some time. Now version 17 has come out and this problem turns up again. I am definitely not amused!

And after activating the software, my Windows 10 machine sometimes crashes and gives me a blue screen of death. After reboot I can activate again and use the software again.

I have reinstalled it a few times now, this didn't help.

Don't tell me I have to upgrade to get rid of this problem. This new version doesn't have any functionality that I need for my workflow.