Update: Got a copy of 7 pro today. It took a few hours and numerous attempts to get the dvd drive to read the disc before windows finally installed. Something they don't mention on the Windows website is that gently smacking the side of a lappy by the dvd tray in frustration actually works. Please don't take that as a recommendation, but I was about ready to take the thing skeet shooting as it was. Anyway, the new install seems to have included the missing files, and the drive works as intended. I don't know how I messed up the previous install so badly, but there were so many corrupted files that it was a mess. fortunately I didn't have anything important on the thing.