XPS 8960, good way to get Windows 10 Pro?

It's easy to downgrade from pre-installed Win 11 to Win 10. Either way will work. Read this...

If software doesn't run properly in Win 11, right-click the app's shortcut and select Properties. When that opens, click Compatibility tab and put check next to Run in Compatibility Mode, and then select a prior version of Windows where the app worked ok. 

I would not do this for several reasons, in no particular order:

1- Microsoft no longer sells Windows 10, so you'll have to search for a copy in stores.

2- You'll void your 8960's warranty.

3- You'll lose the software that was pre-installed with your computer.

4- There's no guarantee that Windows 10 will have drivers for all the hardware in your computer.

5- You'll have to do a clean install of Windows 10 and all your software.

6- Windows 10 is no longer receiving feature updates, only bug fixes and security patches.

7- While you can install any operating system you choose on the XPS 8960, Dell only supports Windows 11 on those computers.

8- Windows 10 will go out of support in a little over two years, so you'll probably end up using Windows 11 anyway.

@Bulldog​  The Win 10 Media Creation tool can still be downloaded for free directly from Microsoft, with no restrictions. @boblite44 doesn't have to purchase Win 10. Since the XPS 8960 has a Win 11 product key embedded in its motherboard, Win 10 will get activated.

Installing Win 10 won't void the Dell hardware warranty.

Microsoft will be supporting Win 10 until Oct'25. And by then they probably will have released Win 12...

@RoHe​ 

Please see:

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/xps-8960-desktop/xps-8960-setup-and-specifications/operating-system?guid=guid-7b81d002-0a69-4d28-9c38-bbcdf7051010&lang=en-us

Excerpt:

With today solid state prices are fallen, your time is more value than of a half TB SSD.  I think the best way for your prefer usage is to removing the current Win 11 drive, temporarily setup Win 10 on a new disk. 

If it can perform well as you have envision, then stick with it for a couple years.  Then migrate again when it's no longer supported. 

If Win 10 does not work well as expected, just simply swap back your Win 11 drive and your machine will be like it was.

For all purposes, you can learn to tweak and make change to Win 11 before going back to Win 10.  You may see that it's not so bad at all.  Win 12 is already set to be released next year, in 2024, you may have a different plan by then.  But, of course, nothing is set in stone. 

@Chino de Oro​ 

This is indeed the way to go or another option is to install Windows 10 in Hyper-V.