Review by Michael Gallagher

I purchased this to perform a fresh install on an HP laptop - the laptop was one that previously came with Vista and I had subsequently upgraded to 7 with a three user license software package. Somehow, a family member (who will remain anonymous in case they read the review) managed to screw up a lot of the functionality which led to crashes, hanging, you name it. While I like to think I am pretty tech savvy, I could not fix it nor could an IT professional who does things like this each and every day.

What to do? Take a copy of My Documents and do a clean install with this disc, then re-load Office 2010 and My Documents.

Worked like a charm. It did take some time to install, and the machine needed to do a lot of updates for Microsoft patches and fixes - I couldn’t tell you how long it took as I just left the machine running to the side most of the day, checking up on it and clicking a few buttons here and there, as I worked around the house.

I now have a stable platform and the install went off without a hitch. A little extreme on what I had to do to resurrect this laptop, but it sure beat paying another two grand for a replacement machine!