Restoring MacOS from backup. OR making Microsoft Desktop Connect work. Need answer fast!

I got tired of Apple nagging me to upgrade to Big Sur. Sure, I’ll lose a couple of games but I can download more. Everything seemed to work OK. I lost Hoyle Casino, Freecell, and Sudoku Companion. That’s fine. But then I tried to log into work. VPN connected. When I opened Microsoft Desktop Connect, it didn’t work.

When I tried to download the Beta version of MDC, my computer told me I didn’t have the authority. So I tried to restore from backup. First I tried Migration Assistant, which I hadn’t used before. I googled it, and the page I looked at said that’s what to use. After about half an hour the transfer was complete. The computer restarted, and Big Sur was still there.

So I googled again and tried restarting with Command-R. This looked like it was working, but when I selected my external drive it showed me a list for Mac HD with dates from 2019.

How do I restore Mojave using the backup I made this morning on the external drive?

Before trying to restore, I would try the MDC beta again.
Next time, Right-click on it, and choose “open.” That should let you put your password in to authorize an un-signed app.

Avoid using MA at all cost. Yeah, they tell you that’s what to use, but don’t believe them.

Same result. How can I not be authorised to add programs to my own computer? I tried opening it in a folder. That seemed to work, only I need to be able to use my old MDC to get the information I need to add a PC.

Too late. Do you think MA is why I was unable to install from my backup disc?

This is extremely untrue.
I’ve used MA for decades, on dozens (or more) computers, with nary a problem.

I’d have to see the error message.

Not getting it now. I need to ‘add a PC’, but I need MDC to know what I need to input to add the PC.

Can you tell MDC to open your old prefs, or copy the old prefs to wherever the current ones are stored?

When I click General, it crashes.

I think I need to find out how to get back to Mojave.

I may have to go to CityMac.

OK, if you want to restore, are you sure you have a current Time Machine backup?

I don’t understand people who rely on Time Machine. You can’t boot from a Time Machine backup. It has its uses but it is not a restore-your-entire-environment tool. Carbon Copy Cloner is. SuperDuper is. The commercial product Retrospect still is, although I abandoned it a few cycles ago for being inferior to the shareware products. If you ever want to be able to revert back to what you had, and not just fetch your old files, you should be running a backup routine with one of those.

Anyway, I have MS Desktop Connect running just fine on my virtual 10.14 box, aka Mojave. I have received no prompts to upgrade to some version that requires Big Sur.

I backed up this morning. But when I choose to restore from the remote disc, it brings up Mac HD from 2016-2019.

MDC ran fine on Mojave. Apple kept nagging me to upgrade, so I did.

Sure it is.
You can completely restore a wiped hard drive from a TM backup.

As for the OP’s issue - I dunno. Can you post a screen shot?

Of the attempted restoration? I don’t think that’s available when restoring.

Of the choices you are getting.
Just use a camera…

And you can’t boot from your backup and erase your internal HD and clone your backup to it because you were using Time Machine instead of Carbon Copy Cloner or equivalent, and can’t figure out how to go backwards from Big Sur, right?

You can erase your main partition from the recovery partition.

You can restore from a Time Machine backup from the recovery partition.

Here’s what happens when I try to reboot with Command+R. I select the external drive where I keep my backups.

As you can see, I choose the external drive. But when I Continue, I get this:

It goes to HD, and the lastest backup is November 2019. I backed up onto the external drive yesterday about 11:00.

Then after discovering Remote Desktop no longer worked I used Migration Assistant, which did not restore my computer from the backup. Then I tried Command+R with the pictured results.

Just coming in to second this. For no particular reason the logic board blew on my computer a few months ago (thanks, Apple!). I just handed the Time Machine over to the nice clerk at our local Mac store and a few hours later I was magically back in action.