System Image Restoration Very Slow, Hard Drive Light Not On

[Flying Buttress]

I've decided to system restore to a very old system image (February 3rd, 2013). I'm doing this instead of a factory reset because I can't find my Microsoft Word/Excel/PPT licenses. Also I have a student version of MATLAB that I would not be able to reinstall.

This is the closest I can get to starting fresh before upgrading to Windows 10. There is so much crap on my computer. I've tried sifting through it to delete a bunch of stuff but many times it claims that a file is in use or open and can't be deleted. So I'm just reverting to an old system image when my laptop was only about 8 months old (I got it in June of 2012).

I made a new system image last night just incase I missed backing up something.

Apparently my system image from 2013 was overwritten. I navigate through my portable hdd and open the folder called WindowsImageBackup that was made in 2013 and now it only has a folder inside it that was created last night when I made a new system image. The thing is, my portable hdd has 40gb available on it. There is no reason why it would have overwritten my other system image.

Here is what I have.

In 1, you see I have .iso files. Can I use them to restore my computer back to 2013? I just need to burn them to CDs? Then keep inserting them into the disc drive as instructed?

In 2, I have something that I have no idea what it is.

In 3, it shows the overwritten system image...

Do the .iso files act as system repair discs (if I were to burn them to discs)? Or would they be recovery discs? My goal is to still have Microsoft Office and MATLAB. The laptop came with Windows 7 so I assume If I factory reset it, I wouldn't lose my OS.

http://i.imgur.com/PfM7NYZ.png

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello and welcome FB mate take a look at this http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/153626-product-key-number-windows-7-find-see.html and use option 2 it is pretty good at finding that stuff - for Microsoft anyway the other I think you will have to see.

Now if you want my humble opinion I would make sure you back things up really well before tackling 10 because having been there like so many others have not liked it and come back to 7.

What I did was to clone my C: drive and use the clone to do the upgrade on and just as well because the laptop upgrade went sour and the desktop one well to be honest it is just another version of 8 with a few more bells and whistles and not to mention the wretched privacy issue which I thing M$ is taking a real liberty with.