Download Windows ISO images from Windows 10 page [updated]

Currently the only official way of downloading Windows 7 ISO image is by visiting Windows 7 Disc Images website and providing valid license key. There is no official way to download these images, if you don’t have a key. Fortunately raymond.cc brought a nifty workaround, found by one of the Russian groups of net-freaks.

Update (13 August 2016)

No more playing with changing contents of webpage or getting pissed of with Microsoft constantly changing website and making ISO downloading as hard as possible. The solution is a simple tool, called Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool, which you can get at heidoc.net.

It requires .NET Framework 4 and Internet Explorer 11, but certainly is worth every minute spent on getting it. As it ease downloading Windows and Office ISOs hundred times.

Original solution

Because raymond.cc’s blog posts contains a lot of totally unimportant blah-blah with a lot of not needed screenshot for mentally disabled (i.e. idiots) and a few more stupid things (like stupidly opening links in another tab after even more stupid redirect to some dully disclaimer page), I decided to write my own, greatly reduced version of this workaround.

It goes like this:

1. Open Windows 10 Tech Bench Upgrade Program (preferably in a new tab).

2. Open Dev Tools in your browser (i.e. F12 in Chrome and some others). Go to Console tab.

3. Inject (i.e. paste and hit Enter to execute) following code to opened page:

var _0x5c09=["product-edition","getElementById","innerHTML",
"<option value='' selected='selected'>Select edition</option>" +
"<option value='28'>Windows 7 Starter SP1</option>" +
"<option value='2'>Windows 7 Home Basic SP1</option>" +
"<option value='6'>Windows 7 Home Premium SP1</option>" +
"<option value='4'>Windows 7 Professional SP1</option>" +
"<option value='8'>Windows 7 Ultimate SP1</option>" +
"<option value='52'>Windows 8.1 Home and Pro (September 2014)</option>" +
"<option value='48'>Windows 8.1 Home and Pro Single Language (September 2014)</option>" +
"<option value='79'>Windows 10 Home and Pro RTM (July 2015)</option>" +
"<option value='82'>Windows 10 Home and Pro Single Language RTM (July 2015)</option>" +
"<option value='178'>Windows 10 Home and Pro 1511 (April 2016)</option>" +
"<option value='184'>Windows 10 Home and Pro 1511 Single Language (April 2016)</option>",
"submit-product-edition","Confirm","log"],_0x1d62=[_0x5c09[0] ,_0x5c09[1] ,_0x5c09[2] ,
_0x5c09[3] ,_0x5c09[4] ,_0x5c09[5] ,_0x5c09[6]] ,
edititonbox=document[_0x1d62[1]](_0x1d62[0]);
edititonbox[_0x1d62[2]]=_0x1d62[3] ,document[_0x1d62[1]](_0x1d62[4])[_0x1d62[2]]=_0x1d62[5] ,
console[_0x5c09[6]];

(I don’t know, what is the actual difference between Home and Pro and Home and Pro Single Language editions as you’re selecting language also during download of Home and Pro version, so these certainly are not a all-languages packages)

You’re done (probably). Check the response:

A. If it is something like function log() { [native code] } or similar then you’re done. The Select edition dropdown should be extended and allow you to select (in addition to default four editions of Windows 10) also many editions of Windows 7 and 8. After you select particular edition, you can select language version and platform version (either 32-bit or 64-bit) and finally you can download selected ISO image.

B. If it says something like Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property 'innerHTML' of null(...) or similar then you must refresh Tech Bench page or restart entire browser or even clear the cookies etc. and go through above steps again.

Final question — is this legal? Well… taking into account, that you’re downloading these images directly from Microsoft servers I’d said that this is pretty legal. It’s just a workaround or counter-strike against mindless Microsoft marketing freeks, who can’t understand that people are often downloading ISO images “just in case”. Without actual need of installation of any device and thus, without valid license key.

Remember, that you don’t need to burn these images to DVD (especially important in case of Windows 10, which many editions require double-layer DVD). You can install your Windows directly from USB. All you need to do is to unpack contents of ISO file (which is actually another type of archive, just like .zip or .rar) to any pendrive. This can be done with WinZip, 7-zip, Total Commander or many, many other programs. After unpacking ISO file you need to:

(a) run installer in current version of Windows (system update) or

(b) set pendrive’s partition as active (which can be done in Disk Management tool or in many other disk tools), change BIOS boot sequence and restart computer from that pendrive (clean install).

That’s all folks!