My first computer job was in 1975.
When was yours?
Why the heck would you suggest a non-geek person, just trying to get their prior computer's state back, install a cr@p OS she may not even have and setup up the system as a dual-boot with separate partitions?
That was just plain clueless, djf. Why don't you tell her the best thing to do is dual boot Linux to get her back to “normal”? She didn't have Linux, either.