It came installed on the machine which she purchased new from a reputable company so I assume all is legit. She does not care too much about the money angle, she primarily wants to keep everything the same as long as she can. If $60 buys her one more year, she will be happy. Where could she get a much better machine for $60 or less?
Time to abort? I just realized this rig was purchased years before Win7 was launched so it must have come with XP. My S-I-L's ex son-in-law (too many in-laws!) took care of the PC as my S-I-L and her hubby do not know or care anything about PC's. I assume the ex son-in-law installed Win7 at some point and I have no idea if it is legit or not.
Also, just saw a great 2 part Youtube video of a guy who inherited a HP 753n from his grandfather's estate. He seemed to know a lot about computers. He said in the early 2000's it was unusual for PC's to have recovery partitions and HP came out with them sooner than most. Also, some came with hidden recovery partitions. If this rig has a recovery partition it much be hidden. Makes sense because available space on C and D is only 70GB on an 80GB HD. Of course, restoring to XP as it was in 2004 would not be much help. He also commented that if the power supply went out he would have to get a new case.
Finally, I just read a MS article which said a downloaded ISO image could only be used to install on the same PC. This article was talking about ISO images purchased from the MS store. Maybe ISO images downloaded from Digital River are differential. I think her machine can play but not burn DVD's.
I am beginning to think the view is not worth the climb on this one, especially as Cameronguy already pointed out, if she has to buy a new OS.
