Happy Sunday, all. So here's the deal. I want to wipe my Acer laptop and start from scratch. I have the system recovery disk I made after initial boot up but I don't want all the bloatware crap that came with the machine. Lots of annoying and intrusive stuff from Acer and elsewhere that was a pain to remove and some of it didn't want to uninstall at all. I figure since I paid for the damned thing and a license I should have access to a clean copy of Windows. 

Another side question is... this system is Win7 Home. I actually have a Win7 Pro disc I bought for my DAW. I'm assuming if I used that instead I wouldn't be able to register it. Is that true or is there a way around it (that's legal)?

Anyway... been thinking on this for a while and figured I'd ask you smart dudes. Cheers. 

MS do have downloads available if you go to their download site. Make sure you get the right one to work with your license though as the version is coded into the installation.

Sweet! I really thought I was gonna get boned on this. Thanks, Karyn.

It may take some search for...  I'll have a look.

  Yeah... just looking now. I found the paid version but reading the page I don't think that's gonna work. Figures they'd bury it.  

Ok, I take that back....   You used to be able to download installation sets for win7.  I know because I've done it several times.

But it seems to have been removed in favour of Win 8 now....

Thanks. I appreciate the effort. I wasn't having much luck either. It seems if you want to do what I'm attempting you have to fork over $99 to a third party which I'm not willing to do. Maybe I'll see if there are any used discs on ebay or something or just do the factory restore. Buggers had all sorts of useless crap installed on this thing and they so kindly gave me a trial version of McAffee. lulz... Does anybody still use that AV?

A license is a license.

I have a Toshiba that came with all the usual crap and has a Windows 7 license. When the original drive gave up I installed Windows 7 from my OEM disk that is on my DAW, used the license number that came with the Toshiba and that worked fine. I'm typing this on it.

I couldn't install Windows 7 from Toshiba without installing all the other garbage. Whether that'll work with a consumer Windows 7 install though I have no idea.

Just remember that you'll have to hunt down drivers for any specific features that you want to use such as the special keys etc.

Hi, Carl. I think my main problem is that the disc I have is for Pro and the laptop license is for Home... or are you saying that I can license two computers using my Pro disc/license? I'm wondering even if I can't register it what's the difference? No updates? Cheers.

I think there'll be a problem there. My licenses are two different licenses but for the same type -  Home x64. Sorry didn't realise you were using two different types. Maybe I should read closer before typing.