going Linux?

Image your machines with Acronise True Image. Then just rebuild them fom the image. Use large external drives for storing the images. My desktop and three laptops are all imaged on one 2Tb drive I use with a SATA dock.

that answers most my query  pirvan. I did try win10 and go back to win7 in less than a week and that is what started this current mess with win7 now saying its not genuine and no key to replace the one MS blocked from activating (or re-activating 30 days after recovery back to win7) another scam MS has to force a flawed OS on us. if I could just find an entire win7 ultimate sp1 disc set with key I can yet again waste more weeks of my shorter life re-installing it and all the software/updates since that dumb test. maybe even trash the 10gb of win10 "updates still wasting HDD space since they dont clean up after themselves like normal companies. btw I also installed Comodos free anti virus and firewall and love them and all the cool extras that came with them. Microsoft could take some notes from places like them on how to behave in public. :^) thanks! my 2 sons that are IT experts in high up jobs just make fun of my love for IBM laptops and all my old apps I enjoy both for work and play in my retirement years. I love my latest IBM Lenovo W500 with all its maxed out features. its at least as great of performer as 90% of the top PCs currently available and more capable than most in many ways. but win 10 disables half the hardware on it and I see tons of others online complaining of same issues I had. today when talking to MS tech about my issues since the win10 trail they simply said see if lenovo can help and hung up on me. dont sound like win7 is still supported to me huh? supposed to be til mid jan 2016. they are blocking all OEM installs keys now with no explanation and computer manufacturers dont support software made by other companies especially on PCs out of warranty. so yeah I would warn everybody to avoid win 10 like the plague. MS is lieing about everything they tell you about it and how you can go back to old OS with no issues. they sabatoge your old OS and some of your hardware and software settings so you have nothing to fall back on and no options but win 10 from them. its loaded with privacy/security issues and empty of most features we had and need for our use. relying solely on web based cloud and Microsoft permission to use our own PC under their terms.

Well, to be fair, they're not really blocking any genuine keys.  What they did do, is allow users of ANY Windows 7 or 8, including non-genuine/pirated copies, to upgrade to 10, but if you go back, you need a genuine key to activate.  If you don't have one, or if your key was one of the enterprise keys that had been released in the wild and are now blacklisted, then they will prevent you from activating.

Does your laptop have a COA sticker on the bottom?  That COA should have the original key on it, try to activate with it, but make sure your installation is what the COA says it should be, you can't activate Ultimate with a Home or Pro, (or vice versa).

If you can't find any of those, then your choices are limited. 

• You can buy a genuine copy of Windows 7 (you should be able to find them on line, ebay, etc), it should come with a COA sticker with the activation key,

• Call Lenovo and see if you can get the original installation discs for that laptop (assuming it came with Windows 7).  Their installation disc will automatically "self-activate" becuase of OA2.0

• Take the low road and download an activator.  Those basically fool the system into thinking it has OA2.0 (OEM Activation) blobs installed into the BIOS

Or you can use the system as is, ignore the non-genuine pop-ups and overlay in the corner, and reset your deskop after every boot (or don't turn your PC off, just put it to sleep).