[KC Burke]

I’ve got a little netbook that was out of my control for a while and its OS is now trashed. Had XP on it and I’m thinking of just reformating the root drive and installing “7” fresh as a full install. I’m afraid there is registry and root kit demons in it now.

Is that something that a non-techie can work his way through?

[Big Giant Head]

Oh, yeah. I’m not much of a techie, but I’ve done lots of OS installs. With a netbook, you must have an external drive, of course, and with W7, it’s gotta be a DVD drive. In your BIOS, you need to make sure you can boot from the drive, USB boot, I think. But the OS is drop dead simple to install. It’ll ask you questions along the way, you just pick what you want to do. A format will kill off the demons. Have no fear, just do it.

[Terpfen]

Is that something that a non-techie can work his way through?

You'll need to look up a guide to tell you how to fit Windows 7 on a USB stick and install from there, but sure, it should be easy enough to go through.

Try this. It's made for the Windows 7 beta/RC, so you can skip the part about getting a serial key and go straight to the "Preparing your flash drive" section. (Note: you'll have to create an ISO of the Windows 7 DVD before even bothering with this guide.)