I, too, am a user who bought my computer from a major manufacturer with the OS pre-installed. I find that I have the option of restoring my system to the ad-ware infested state that I got it in or doing a backup. The supplied backup software will not write to DVD (windows ntbackup). Further, the option to make a boot disk requires that I insert a floppy disk. I don't have a floppy drive. The supplied DVD burning software does not seem to offer a choice of making a bootable DVD and there is nothing that I can find in the "knowledge base" here that fills the need unless I am an SDK developer. My choice appears to be buying a third party backup package. What ever happened to the idea that I should back up my OS??? I really don't want to spend another $60-80 to do something that the OS should do. To add insult to injury, I get a notification that ms wants to install spyware on my computer. They call it a "genuine advantage", but it looks just like spyware to me. I really am beginning to think that the hassles are worse than the ease of use. Maybe learning Linux would be worth the effort. At least I would not be robbed every time I want to do some basic housekeeping task.
