In the moments before I spilled my laptop last week, my project had been to save old data off of my Surface 3 and revert its installation from Windows 10 to Windows 8.1. I'm not 100% sure where it was storing this information, but it turns out that in the PC Settings application of Windows 10, at least on Surfaces, there's an option to reinstall the original OS that came with the device.
After months of waiting for visual errors in the interface, problems with the keyboard, and out of control power usage to be fixed, and just general slowness. Changing the software doesn't necessarily fix problems with the hardware of the device. Mine's still got a corner protruding from where I've dropped it, the Surface 3's keyboard still isn't the best keyboard on a mobile computer, and although the trackpad works well, it's pretty small, likely due to the restrictions on how big a trackpad can even be on a device this size.
The reinstallation went smoothly. It downloaded everything and asked whether or not I wanted to skip ahead to Windows 10 (which I suppose is fair, it doesn't know that I'm doing this to get away from 10.)
It has been bugging me about upgrading to Windows 10, although because I did all of this after upgradegate, I can just click on the x button. I should probably click on the "decline free offer" link, as my system has already gotten its Windows 10 licensing.
It came with Office 2013 and I'm using that for now. 2016 is fine, but there are some changes to the behavior of Outlook that are not totally ideal.
I've been on Windows 8.1 on the Surface 3 for a week or two now and I'm pretty happy with it. In general, the Surface feels snappy and reliable once again. It does nice things like goes into hibernation mode when it's off power for a while, so as to save battery in your bag. I feel like wireless works better, web pages load faster, and the interface is predictable and usable.