[Skybird]

What a total mess. I have lost both my two DVDs where I had saved my patch archive for a fresh Windows 7 installation. The original, and the copy - both gone. I included the patches released until SP1, and then the patches from SP1 until summer 2015. It did not include anything later, avoiding most of those messy later patches dealing with Microsoft'S brutal GWX assault-campaign and the earlier attempts of inverse-installing W10-spy technology into Windows 7.

These DVDs were my holy grail. I forsaw the probolems I now have, and knew they were precious therefore. They would have allowed me to reinstall W7 without needing to access Microsoft's infested malware database online.

I desperately searched for an hour now foran old source, website, link, whatever, where I could get such an old patch archive and download it, and not from Microsoft. Two years ago, such places existed, today I find none anymore.

Has anyone a trustworthy link? The problem with PC magazinse' according offeringsd is that they always update their archive to the latest status, so I get all the crap from the past two years with them as well. I want nothing beyond summer 2015 at the latest.

I will never forgive Microsoft what a mess they have turned my gaming life into.

And don'T tell me about W10. I will never get into, period. Also do not tell me about Linux, I use it already for anything else. But the kind of simulations I want to play, and Linux - do not go well together.