How do you buy your software? Do you still prefer disks as in DVDs? I like DVDs, well actually just two DVDs. They are both DVD-RW and they are both BLANK. I also have a 4gb flash drive set up to auto boot which also contains nothing other than the boot info.

The last time that I bought an operating system in a box was January 2007. It was Vista Ultimate in one of the strange shaped boxes which didn’t open the way that you thought they should. Since then, all of my software has been downloaded from the Internet.

So, you have downloaded the operating system upgrade, office suite, or game. Now what?

Save it  – Save it – Save it 

Save it to an external hard drive. It has just cost you in excess of $150, and if your hard drive breaks, you have lost it, albeit temporarily. BUT.. Temporarily = getting in touch with whoever/wherever you downloaded the file and, in all probability, you have lost the email which contained that information and the key code needed to activate it.

If you don’t have an external hard drive, get one, and if you have a second computer, save it all to that one too because remember, your main PC is NOT working, is it.

I have everything saved to an external drive, and two other computers. If I need an ISO image, I go to one of the computers and create the bootable DVD then copy it to the 4gb bootable flash drive. An operating system will install very fast indeed from a flash drive.

The info re where you bought it and the key code is in an email. Copy the contents of the email to WordPad, and then PRINT it out more than once. Place one hard copy in your SOCK drawer, and the other in your nice neat filing system wherever that may be.

If you get through the above tasks NOW, I won’t be typing to you in the Microsoft Community re how to recover your download and key code. I am obliged to keep it ‘professional’ which is difficult while I am wondering why anybody with just one head could be so dumb.

I’ve been there, seen it, done it, but you’re smarter than that, eh. You learn from the mistakes of others because it is less painful at a local level, don’t you.

Say YES.. Smile