I understand how you feel (I personally wouldn't give W7 house room - they lost the plot ages ago - anyway that might be just me). I hope there's someone reading who has seen your problem.
Before you tear out all your hair and climb the very expensive fence to the orchard take a squiz at a little herb you haven't spotted underfoot more modern and reliable than both the fruit and the holes in buildings -
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2216. It almost certainly runs on your existing hardware and costs you nothing at all (ie free, gratis, so there's no profit in selling it). Download the "Mate" DVD iso file from one of the local mirrors, burn it, and boot up from the DVD. (If you haven't burnt a bootable DVD before, see
http://www.ehow.com/how_7279683_burn-linux-mint-cd.html). The live DVD runs entirely in RAM for tryout purposes and loads from the rather slow DVD drive rather than the disk. If you start the install process (select a desktop icon) it will put itself on the hard disk and fly along (takes a quarter to half an hour to install, including a host of applications). Thousands of apps can be installed for free just by selecting an icon. Everything essential including a full office suite is on the CD. Like the fruit shop, but even more so, it isn't bothered by the malware merchants. Mint is a user-friendly spin-off from the Debian OS which runs a large part of the internet, including most ISPs. Massively customisable, it can even be made to resemble Granny Smiths or leaky apertures, but who would?