Thanks, I knew there had to be a way but was on the way out the door and didn't have time to google it. neil The three kinds of stress…nuclear, cooking and a&&hole. Jello is the key to the relationship. On 2012-02-12, at 4:03, "Randy B. Singer" <randy at macattorney.com> wrote: > > On Feb 11, 2012, at 8:31 AM, Neil Laubenthal wrote: > >> For machines that ship with it installed . . .I wonder how this works . . .there must be a way to get the actual installer for backup purposes but I don't know what it is. > > The Apple provided way to get a copy of Lion if it came pre-installed: > > Download Lion Recovery Disk Assistant: > http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718 > > To burn a DVD or create a USB Flash drive of OS X 10.7: > > Lion Disk Maker, which is a small application programmed with AppleScript that you can use with Mac OS X 10.7 to burn a DVD or build a bootable USB key from Mac OS X Lion’s Installation program. It is superior to Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, above, in that no part of the OS needs to be downloaded from Apple. > http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/ > > Burning a bootable DVD of Lion: > http://macs.about.com/od/macoperatingsystems/qt/Create-A-Bootable-Copy-Of-Os-X-Lion.htm?nl=1 > > ___________________________________________ > Randy B. Singer > Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions) > > Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance > http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html > ___________________________________________ > > > > _______________________________________________ > X4U mailing list > X4U at listserver.themacintoshguy.com > http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/x4u