Downloading OEM CDs from the Internet
 

My father in law brought his PC (eMachines) over yesterday.

It had a dying hard drive. No recovery DVD either, just a partition. And it restores all the OEM crapware if you choose to use it, and have to spend hours uninstalling and removing the garbage. Plus, all the crap they add on is a security risk waiting to happen!

No problem. You can download Windows 7 installation media from a legit source (Digital River) and install only the OS and what you want using the product key on the side of the PC. Granted you will not be getting a free version bump, but you will get a PC free of all the bundled crap on it that is legit and can be activated.

I put in a 500gb SATA drive, and installed Windows 7 Home Premium, the nVidia drivers, LibreOffice, Avast!, Google Chrome, CutePDF, Adobe Reader, and all the patches.

When I was done, the machine was much faster, with much less crap on it.

Link here at bottom of page: http://superuser.com/questions/28055...tion-iso-files

I recommend this if you get a PC from the store.

I can tell you at work that we take pride in building our images the right way, and that we do put in the right drivers and test it relentlessly. This lets me do the same at home and not have to deal with the OEM crap.

Excellent Mitch, that's good to know. Thanks. :notworthy

Will it do XP? I have no idea where my recovery disks are. Don't need them right now, but might someday.

Check the Smithsonian, right next to the Model T exhibit. Look for the diorama where Scotty is speaking into the mouse.

Unfortunately no. XP was a bit more restrictive with licensing and OEM versions. If I were you I would image that PC and store the drive somewhere else safe.

I have a friend who has XP Pro on a CD. If he ever gets me a copy, I will make a .iso of it and figure out a way to put it on the torrents to replace all the flawed/hacked versions out there.