[iceman (Mike)]

Hi guys

My Toshiba laptop is a bit over 1.5 years old, and it had Windows 7 setup pre-installed. That is, when you start the laptop for the first time, Windows is installed and you choose 32 or 64bit etc.

I chose 32bit at the time.

Now, 1.5 years later, it's starting to run like a dog, especially when using Photoshop, Lightroom etc, and there's an increasing number of Windows updates that fail to install (currently about 25).

I'd like to do a fresh clean install, and probably install 64 bit, but I don't have the Windows 7 CD so I'm wondering if I can re-install? Is the CD KEY on the bottom of the laptop?

What do I need to be careful of?

I really don't want to have to re-install everything, but it's getting so slow I don't have much choice. The larger file sizes of the 5D Mark II images are killing it.

Also, do I even need to bother with 64 bit if my laptop only has 4gig of RAM?
Isn't 64 bit for addressing RAM over 4gig?