@streakmachine They made a big change recently. They introduced package management for installing apps from repositories rather than the old method of downloading binaries from websites and running them from whatever location you want.
Well, it looks like the Acer eRecovery thing will only do a factory restore which means wiping out Linux and Haiku in order to get a clean Windows install. Bollocks. I wanted to just wipe one partition. This is why new computers not coming with a full Windows retail disc is egregious. If I do the disk to VHD thing now the file is gonna be forty-one bloody gigabytes. I wonder how viable that is. I think it's the only reasonable option at the moment though.
@matigo Where is it? Is it still in a queue waiting to be posted? Why would you queue stuff anyway, instead of just posting straight away?
@hazardwarning Windows menu>right click on Computer>properties to see if you have service pack 2.
One thing you need to be aware of is, if you re-install Windows (in order to get it into a smaller, cleaner state) onto a machine with a Linux partion it may overwrite the GRUB bootloader and only leave you with a Windows boot option. I'm not sure of the best way around that. @matigo might know.
You could skip the re-installing bit but if Windows is currently huge your Windows VM is going to be huge too.
@hazardwarning I'm in the same boat with a hugely bloated Vista on an Acer laptop. The size problem is down to the winsxs folder. See this link:
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/winsxs-folder-windows-7-8
You can clean it up a bit with VSP1CLN.EXE. Just bear in mind that if you have Vista Service Pack 2 installed they have replaced that with compcln as explained in this site:
https://bcrawfordjr.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/windows-vista-service-pack-2-clean-up-tool-compcln-exe/
I did the compcln command but it only got me 1GB back so I think re-installing Windows is the way to go. Once I've done a clean re-install and removed some of the Acer bloatware I may use @matigo's VM method.
// @matigo