>lucky for me I have a machine running Windows as well so I could get online to do it and download the stuff I needed.
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Funny, I had the opposite experience this week. A friend of mine had misplaced his driver disks for his Ethernet card and so couldn't get online when Windows decided it was time for a routine OS reinstall.

Using Mandrake 9.0 disks I legally gave him (after having legally downloaded them) he was online in no time and ultimately decided not to bother reinstalling Windows.