In Part One I had a moan about people still using Win 9x; followed by talking about those XP users who are still running XP on the original equipment that they bought with XP preinstalled on it when it first appeared. – How their hardware is becoming old, and will probably encounter problems if Windows 7 is run on it.

I went on to talk about how many manufacturers saved themselves a few squid by not including any installation media with their new machines; rather just a ghost image CD of the original state of the drive at point of sale at best. I talked about how I myself fell victim to this and how I got around it with XP.

Now we’re going to take a look at a similar situation with Windows 7. – There’s a problem: There is no i386 folder in Windows 7; nor is there one in Server 2008 or in Vista for that matter. – So; unless you have installation media, you’re kind of scuppered from the start: You’ll only be able to install 7 from the original installation media, and if you need to do a reinstall and don’t have any installation media then you’d better hope that you have a ghost image of the disc as it was at point of sale

- However a ghost image of the disc as it was at point of sale is not good enough in many cases; as you may previously have spent ages removing all the crapware that the manufacturer included preinstalled at point of sale; and now you’re going to have to do it all again.

Of course; if you’ve been good then you’ll have been making regular backups of your entire hard-drive and keeping copies of them: Therefore if things screw up you’ll always have a backup or two to fall back on. Despite much sorrow and heartache, though; people still don’t learn. I guarantee that at least 75% of computer users either don’t have or don’t have a current backup. Hopefully you’re not one of them: A little time spent now making a current backup will save you a lot of time in the future when your hard-drive dies. It’s not a matter of if but rather when; so always have a recent backup to hand.

- But that’s still not really good enough; even if you have made backups as you should, you’ve been cheated by the manufacturer and/or the retailer if you don’t have proper installation media. The remedy is up to you: What you must do is insist that you’re not going to buy unless you have proper installation media included in the deal. Ignore the silver-tongue of the sales people and don’t let them fob you off with second best; which I guarantee in many cases they will attempt to do. – Either you get proper installation media from them or you go and buy the product from somewhere else. – Even if this company are the cheapest you’ve found. (Now you know why.) No ifs and no buts: Installation media included or I walk. End of story.

If the sales  people try to charge you extra for installation media over and above the agreed cost of the deal then you are being ripped off; and you’ll also probably end up with unoriginal installation media anyway: Walk out. Bid them farewell and leave: They’re con-artists, whether they’re an established company or a backstreet computer shop. Take your business elsewhere, to somewhere that supplies original installation media with the product.

- Remember; there is no i386 and there is no back-door installation method any more. If you don’t have your original Windows 7 CD then you may well have problems at a later date.