So, a little over a week ago I got the pleasant surprise of Windows 7 turning the automatic updates back on.

To make things even better, some of the updates failed to install, and then when I signed back in, Windows tried installing them again.

Although they "successfully" installed this time around, I noticed that besides being a little sluggish.. I couldn't open some of my programs, and some of the ones built into Windows 7 weren't working either.

Also, I can switch which graphics card I'm using between the Intel HD Graphics 3000 and nVidia GeForce GT 525M, and my nVidia graphics panel wouldn't respond, nor could I toggle between the two.

So, I went through the trouble of backing all of my data onto my external drives, so that I could do a restore to a previous backup. But, wouldn't you know it, every time I tried to do a system restore, it would fail.

I had also bought a new mouse, and I was told by Windows that I didn't have the drivers installed on my computer to use it.. and I found that some of my other USB devices no longer worked.

While looking for a CD so that I could re-install Windows, I remembered that I didn't receive a disc when I bought my laptop.
I do own a key for Windows 7 Pro, but without a disc to install it, it's rather useless.

So, I remembered that I have access to MSDN, the Microsoft Developer Network, through school. So, I went looking. While skimming over the Windows 7 ISO that I could download, I missed where it had the link to W7Pro and only saw the debug version..and no way was I taking chances with that.

So, I found the next best thing. And installed it (rather quickly, which I was happy about).

TL;DR, I am running Windows 8 Pro that I got for free and I actually don't hate it like I thought I would.