[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Mike

Your laptop should have a recovery folder (it may be hidden, there are ways to find it if your instruction book hasn't told you how) to allow you to start all over again but it will not normally save anything you have added. Copy your User folder to another drive or computer and any other important files as well. They can be written back to the "new" installation.

As for the key you should not need it but it probably won't be the the same as on that label. None of mine ever are.

To find your key I have attached the keyfinder program in case you have not got it. It will find your Windows 7 key and MSofice keys as well

Your computer has probably got Norton antivirus on it and a lot of other garbage that are notorious for making a computer go slow. A good clean up of programs you don't use and registry may get your speed back.

I am not sure about your 32/64 bit option. I have a dual core AMD with 4GB of RAM running Win7 64 bit. It dual boots to WinXP as well. I have some 64 bit programs on Win7 with 32 bit versions on XP and there is no obvious difference in performance.

Barry