Am I weird or what?

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ok, a couple of questions here. . .
Why would I need a virtual machine to do a backup? And if Vista has a disk imaging program, like norton ghost, I haven't found it. What is the program called? Unless you mean the 'system restore' which I've used in the past and feel it's not as good as a fresh install. Haven't done it with vista so maybe it's gotten better but I have my doubts.
 
virtual machine is to test software and configurations. xp has a disc imaging program. it's just a pain to use it
 
Ok, so the VM is actually a preventative measure. Understood.

Is the Vista disk imager as much of a pain as having to risk not being able to get your OS validated the next time you need to install windows?

Example: Six months ago I installed Vista on a raid 0 setup and updated my drivers then activated my OS. Today one of my raid hard drives fail so I have to install on a singe drive. The up to date drivers I download are not the same versions as the ones I installed six months ago so the OS thinks they're all different components and won't activate. I call the microsoft validate number and give them the billion digit code just to have them tell me they can't activate my product at this time.

Granted, earlier this week when I was helping my brother install and activate vista they were quite good with us over the phone and let us activate his system but the above example is a true story that happened to me with XP. Fortunately I do have a backup drive and went back and found my old drivers. Reinstalled, used the old drivers and it activated but my goal here is to avoid that kind of scenario.

Sry, I work in the oilfield in Texas and get up very early. Tis late for me and my brain is mush. I hope all that made sense.
 
I am not goin to read all these posts, no need.

Dont worry. I am hopelessly insane myself. "If it dont work try it again, if it dont work do it again, if it dont work start over, if it dont work... you get the idea"

I bot me a new laptop and decided to try the recovery disk. Well its did not wiping out than recovering. I used it of about 8 times (or so). I downloaded several linux OSes cuz well they didnt like this or that on my machine. I tryed bootleg XP install disks and everything else I could get my hands on. I did not want to send my new computer back. I got to where I was wiping my harddrive and installing an OS of some sort at least once a day. This went on for about 2 weeks or so. Finally (after wiping my HHD and running either the recovery disk or trying to install an OS or installing an OS I would guess over 2 dozen times) I settled in with suse, got my work done so I could live without it for a couple weeks and sent it back.

I aint got it back yet. I REALLY miss her. Im gonn go look at my email to see when she is coming home. Then Ill turn on some country music and pour myself a drink. and maybe try to fall asleep. (Should losing a new computer be this hard?)(Really I am joking here but everything about "I REALLY miss her" is true.)
 
Ok, so let me see if I got this right. . .
I make a backup of my os drive with Acronis which makes its file in the .tib format. Then I open VMware (server, workstation, player?) and load the backup into my virtual machine. Then install whatever program I'm wanting to test and see if it crashes the os in my VM?
Is this close to right?
 
Once I figure out how to make a virtual machine I'll be back to try to figure out how to load a .tib file into it. (banging head on keyboard)
 
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