As already explained, the RouterOS can be upgraded for lifetime. But also in some cases, you require to downgrade the RouterOS to a release which is more stable than the newest one. So how to downgrade the RouterOS? The answer will be explained in the upcoming LAB.

LAB: Downgrading the RouterOS

We are still on the same LAB scenario. At the moment, R1 has the RouterOS version 7.1.2, and I decided to downgrade it to RouterOS version 7.1.1 because I had a feeling that the newest version has still some bugs.

First let’s justify if the installed RouterOS on R1 is version 7.1.2:

Indeed, it is on version 7.1.2 which is a stable version. How can I know it is a stable version? All you need to do is to click on “Check for Updates” on the same windows and it will show to you as the following:

[mepr-show rules=”319″ unauth=”message”]

That’s great. Now I want to put RouterOS version 7.1.1 on R1. To do that, we need to download from MikroTik website the oldest RouterOS version for the architecture of this router. As you know, MikroTik have different architecture names for their products. To know what the architecture name of the router is, we have to do the following:

You can find the router architecture name from 2 ways:

1. Looking on the top of the Winbox and it shows that the architecture name is “mipsbe”
2. You can go to system/resources then you can see the architecture name.

Now we know what the architecture name of the router is, let’s get the stable RouterOS version 7.1.1 from MikroTik website.

The file has been downloaded and it is on my desktop.

All I need to do it to drag and drop the file to Winbox.

I have successfully uploaded the RouterOS to my Winbox and it is now inside the file list. All I need now to go to the packages and click on downgrade, then the router will be rebooted and downgrade the RouterOS to version 7.1.1.

After rebooting, we wait for the router to come back online, and we will see that it will come with RouterOS version 7.1.1

The router has been rebooted successfully, and from Winbox on the Neighbors I can see clearly that the RouterOS is now version 7.1.1:

You can also check that from inside the router on the package list:

So mission is done and the router has been downgraded.

[/mepr-show]