Download Replacement OEM Windows CBS log folder?

Sorry that this is wordy, but the back story is relevant...A friend recently donated a pretty new laptop (Toshiba Satellite, Vista Home Premium x64) to our condo association to use for running a specialty program for BINGO nite on the theater A/V system. She said it was running very slowly and crashing. It was a sufficiently good platform that she could have clean installed windows 7, but she had already replaced it with a new win 8.1 machine. Besides it was quite obvious that it and Vista had her aggravated.

She asked me to clean up the machine for her, deleting all her stuff, as several new users would have access to it on BINGO nites. I quickly found out why it was aggravating her. It was bloated with free downloaded games and shopping crap, and badly infected with hijackers, "free" gameware, adware, toolbars, add-ons, plugins, and, well, you get the picture. The registry was completely rewritten by various installed software. Many OEM executables had been suppressed, etc.

I am aware and able to make repairs to such and began to do so. Unfortunately it was someone else's machine and not my own, with which I am very familiar. On my own machines I often use shift+delete or "File Shredder", to delete programs, because I have no patience for constantly being asked, "are you sure" and then to empty the recycle bin?

A couple of the programs were ignoring windows "Uninstall Program" and I needed to do a fully manual uninstall, which I am also, usually, capable of as well. However, because I was unfamiliar with many of the program names she had installed and their file and registry names, the task was very tedious, as I had to look a lot of them up, except when something was very obviously not a system file. While using either shift+del or File Shredder, during that process, I accidentally deleted the entire windows/CBS folder, thinking for a second that CBS referred to the TV network, DUH. Now, while it still runs, it's back to running slowly, overheating, constant high fan speeds, high CPU usage, heat crashing, won't install some windows updates (they fail), etc.

Here's the problem, the machine either didn't come with reinstall disks, or she lost them, so I don't have them. There is no D drive, so it was either never there or someone before me deleted it. I know D drive isn't hidden because "D" is assigned to the CD/DVD drive. The warranty is long expired so Toshiba won't help.

Correct me if I am in error, but from what I've read, the CBS folder seems to be an OEM system folder. Is there anywhere the whole folder can be re-downloaded and reinstalled from the web? Would that work?

You are referring to the factory reinstall procedure. I would be happy to give you instructions to try and reinstall using that procedure, but think that you would be better off reinstalling by using a Vista install DVD.
If you have the key number, which is usually on a label, which is on the computer, you can reinstall using that procedure.
If you would just post and give us your email address, Peter will send you the link so that you can create a Vista DVD.
Be sure to remove your address after you receive the email.
You can then use the DVD in case of future problems.
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/296167-vista-iso-download-103.html

I have just received word, that you can download the ISO yourself from this link. It is not always up, so act quickly
Windows Vista Direct Download Links

richc46 said:

You are referring to the factory reinstall procedure. I would be happy to give you instructions to try and reinstall using that procedure, but think that you would be better off reinstalling by using a Vista install DVD.
If you have the key number, which is usually on a label, which is on the computer, you can reinstall using that procedure.
If you would just post and give us your email address, Peter will send you the link so that you can create a Vista DVD.
Be sure to remove your address after you receive the email.
You can then use the DVD in case of future problems.
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/296167-vista-iso-download-103.html

Click to expand...

Please provide more details. In my experience, when someone says, "factory reinstall", they mean just that - perform a clean reinstall of the OS, as opposed to use the DVD to custom install a single folder, or perform a repair install. What exactly, of those or other install types did you mean? Please reply to that, as your advice is helpful.
The OEM label is still on the base of the machine and I do have the product key. I am going to follow your advice to obtain, download or write the disk(s). Thank you for that.

Most computers have a restoration partition. In that partition there is an image of the way your computer was the day you took it home. If you run into problems, you can use the restoration partition to restore your computer.
If you use the restoration partition or the link that I provided the outcome is the same, it is like a reinstallation.
The partition will restore like it was the day you took the computer home. The link in my first post includes the updates to SP2. If your computer was purchased prior to SP2, using the restoration partition would mean a lot of updates that would have to be made by you.

Do not post the email address in this thread. Please use the thread that I provided to post your address. Do not forget to delete your address after you receive the information that you need.