Or the other less painful option might hopefully be to go buy a retail version of windows 7 home premium which I might be able to find for between $50-100. Install that and use the newly purchased product key to activate. Is this even an option on an OEM SLP laptop? If so, how would I do this and override the SLP locking. Maybe I don't understand well enough or am overlooking something but I would love to be able to just overwrite with a new retail version and be done with this SLP handcuffing.