Best way to reformat/recover in Windows when your CD key is no longer valid?

Posted by CSarnia on Super User See other posts from Super User or by CSarnia
Published on 2010-04-19T18:27:52Z Indexed on 2010/04/24 3:23 UTC
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windows-7

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formatting

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recovery

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license-key

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reinstall

I have a copy of Windows 7 Professional that I have downloaded from the MSDN e-academy (thanks to my school). Now, the problem is that these license keys are one-use only.

If I need to reformat or do a factory reset, what is the best way for me to do so, without invalidating my license and screwing me out of an operating system?

Edit:

I would also like to know some information on the "restore to factory settings" option in Windows 7 recovery center. Does it do exactly as the name implies and starts you off as if you had just done a fresh install? If I had some kind of nasty trojan or virus, would it be able to survive through the factory reset?

The recovery center also has an option for reformatting, though I don't think that it's an actual format - it just backs up your stuff into a Windows.old folder or something like that. Does that require a valid license key?

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