Download Windows 7 and 8.1 ISO Images from Microsoft

Martin Brinkmann
Feb 17, 2016
Updated • Sep 9, 2019
Windows
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83

It is rather difficult to download ISO images for previous versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system from official sources.

Microsoft wants users to use the company's Media Creation Tool instead which downloads and creates installation media on a system running a supported operating system version.

While that works at times, it does not take into account situations where users may not be able to run the program. This can be the case if the existing installation of Windows is corrupt and cannot be repaired anymore, if you run Linux or another operating system, or if you bought a computer without an operating system.

Update: The Techbench website is offline currently. It is unclear if this is a temporary issue or if Microsoft made the decision to pull it from the Internet.

You can download a Windows 7 ISO image or a Windows 8.1 ISO image from Microsoft's Software Download site. Or use the excellent Windows ISO Downloader tool instead which works fine as well and supports downloads of all major Windows versions and editions.

Windows ISO images

Microsoft's Tech Bench website for Windows 10 provides direct downloads for Windows 10 ISO images.

Downloads for Windows 10, which are valid for Home and Pro versions of the operating system are offered, and it takes a couple of clicks to start the download of the ISO image on the site.

Note: Windows 10 Enterprise is not offered on the page.

download windows iso

Select the edition that you are interested in, e.g. Windows 10 should be the one for most users, and click on confirm afterwards. The server validates the request, and displays a product language menu afterwards.

Select the language you want supported and hit confirm once again. The request is validated again by the server.

product language

Download links for the ISO images are displayed, and you may select 32-bit or 64-bit versions of the selected version of Windows for download (or both).

Links are valid for a 24-hour period only after which they expire and need to be requested again.

windows 10 downloads

Download Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 ISO images

The page offers no indication that ISO image downloads for previous versions of Windows, Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, can be requested there as well.

If you analyze the page source code however, you will notice that Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are mentioned there several times.

That got some people thinking, and the result is code that you can run on the site to add download options for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 ISO images to the page.

The code has been posted on Pastebin. Here is what you need to do:

  1. Open the Microsoft Tech Bench website in a browser of choice that supports Developer Tools, and here the console (e.g. Firefox or Chrome).
  2. If you are using Google Chrome, use Ctrl-Shift-J, if you are using Firefox, use Ctrl-Shift-K to open the console.
  3. Visit the Pastebin website and copy the code posted there.
  4. Paste all of it to the console and hit enter. To do that, click inside the console area and use Ctrl-V to paste it. Alternatively, right-click with the mouse in the area and select paste from the menu.

pasting code

Once you have done that, click on the (now blue) "select edition menu. There you find listed dozens of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 ISO images that you can download in the same way that you can download Windows 10

download windows 7

The process is identical: select the desired version and hit confirm. Wait for server validation, select the desired language and hit confirm. The server validates the request again, and you get ISO download links for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the selected Windows version.

You find all Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 versions on the page with the exception of Enterprise. This includes the following versions:

  1. Windows 7 Home Basic
  2. Windows 7 Home Premium
  3. Windows 7 Professional
  4. Windows 7 Ultimate
  5. Windows 8.1
  6. Windows 8.1 Professional

In addition, you find lots of K, N, KN and Education versions listed on the page after the operation. These versions are designed for specific markets and have components removed:

  1. Windows N for the European market. Multimedia support is removed from the edition.
  2. Windows K for the Korean market. It ships with links to third-party media player software and instant messaging applications.
  3. Windows KN, a combination of K and N editions.

See KB3010081 for additional information.

The improved menu disappears when the page is reloaded, but you can repeat the operation again to display the additional download options again.

Note: Microsoft may plug this at any time but has not done so in the past two months since the code has been first posted.

Summary
Download Windows 7 and 8.1 ISO Images from Microsoft
Article Name
Download Windows 7 and 8.1 ISO Images from Microsoft
Description
Find out how to download ISO images of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 from official Microsoft servers.
Author
Publisher
Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on December 16, 2019 at 6:13 am
    Reply

    In the article, it said “Visit the Pastebin website and copy the code posted there” for windows 7. However, I could not find that code on Pastebin. What are the keywords I need to enter in order to get the code? Thank you!

  2. Rizwan said on April 16, 2019 at 3:22 pm
    Reply

    I prefer Windowstan for downloading Windows ISO images and Office IMG files. Pretty sorted and categorized items.
    http://windowstan.com/

  3. Anonymous said on August 11, 2018 at 7:33 am
    Reply

    So how can i get real MSDN MD5 hashes ? i just signed up live.com account.
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/ here is nothing

    1. Anonymous said on August 11, 2018 at 1:20 pm
      Reply
  4. themacmeister said on February 4, 2017 at 3:21 am
    Reply

    I can confirm this is working 4/2/2017 — TechBench is now just the regular download page here…

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO/

    Paste and enter in Console, and BAM — looks weird, but full functionality… downloading Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit as I type :-D

  5. crazybabe said on February 2, 2017 at 11:13 pm
    Reply

    When I try to go on windows10iso page it redirects me to the download tool. Can anyone please help me to download it? Even if someone uploads the Windows 7 Ultimate on some torrent I will be more than glad!

    The good is that I already made a bootable usb… The bad is that I don’t have the iso after the format…

    1. themacmeister said on February 4, 2017 at 3:22 am
      Reply

      Read my next post, it is totally working from the Win10 download page !!!

  6. Anonymous said on August 4, 2016 at 1:59 pm
    Reply
  7. Hede Hodo said on August 1, 2016 at 2:18 pm
    Reply

    Microsoft Tech Bench website is down :/

    We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found.
    The URL may be misspelled or the page you’re looking for is no longer available.

    :/

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 1, 2016 at 2:35 pm
      Reply

      Yes it is. wonder if this is temporary or permanent. You can use the Windows ISO Downloader tool to grab ISO images: https://www.ghacks.net/2016/05/22/windows-iso-downloader/

      1. Anonymous said on August 4, 2016 at 2:00 pm
        Reply

        En éste enlace sigue funcionando → https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO/

  8. hobie said on July 22, 2016 at 8:40 am
    Reply

    Thank you for the response. It gave me the motivation I needed to keep trying this over and over lol. For me this does not work in Chrome for some reason. (Latest build on Win 7) I tried it at least 15 times, literally. I then tried it in Firefox about 3 or 4 times, to no avail. I verified the code from Pastebin each time I tried it.

    After reading your post, I buckled down and tried in about 2 or 3 more times in Firefox and it worked. I have no idea why it didn’t work the first few times, but finally it did. I did the same thing every time, but for whatever reason it worked the final time lol. The steps are pretty simple so I’m not sure what happened, but either way I’m glad it still works.

    Thank you for posting this trick.

  9. hobie said on July 22, 2016 at 6:29 am
    Reply

    This worked as of a few months ago but doesn’t seem to any longer.

    The error message given is Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property ‘innerHTML’ of null(…) and the dialog box no longer lists the other versions besides Windows 10. (For those reading who may not know, previously the error message given could be ignored and the other versions would appear)

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on July 22, 2016 at 7:02 am
      Reply

      This is still working. Make sure you copy the whole code.

  10. Alexi said on July 13, 2016 at 5:48 pm
    Reply

    Following error is shown:

    Error

    We encountered a problem with your request. Please visit the Microsoft Support Contact Us page for assistance. Refer to Message Code 715-123130 and Transaction ID b060c267-64a8-43dd-ba0c-7d2df5231d3d.

  11. Juoa said on June 22, 2016 at 1:14 pm
    Reply

    It doesn’t work anymore.

    1. capt said on June 22, 2016 at 1:25 pm
      Reply

      Juoa, in case you used my “declutter” userscript above, it blocks out the dialog button now for some reason. So make sure you’re not using that userscript and you should be ok.

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on June 22, 2016 at 1:19 pm
      Reply

      Please be more specific. What is not working anymore? I just checked and it worked on my end.

  12. rtuyod said on June 5, 2016 at 9:51 pm
    Reply

    where is the link?

  13. FY said on May 17, 2016 at 9:51 pm
    Reply

    THIS IS NO LONGER WORKING :: THE JAVASCRIPT YIELDS AN “UNDEFINED” ERROR REGARDING THE SECTION ABOUT THE WEBSITES ENCASED IN THE SCRIPT

    1. anonymous said on July 7, 2016 at 4:37 am
      Reply

      Turn off adblock

  14. WOw said on May 2, 2016 at 10:46 am
    Reply

    This this ISO the up-to-date Windows 7 SP1 ISO file?

  15. Ren said on April 11, 2016 at 6:40 pm
    Reply

    can you tell me how to get windows 8.1 enterprise..?

  16. TD said on April 8, 2016 at 7:35 pm
    Reply

    Buddy u r freaking awesome. Thank u so much

  17. miki said on March 23, 2016 at 2:18 am
    Reply

    Hi!!! you are great!!! nice code and was so easy did it!!!!!!!!
    Thanks a lot.
    I have some questions: Whats is Windows version K or KN or N?
    I’m looking for a Windows 7 sp1 updated to march 2016… Is it possible?

  18. Von Thizzle said on March 19, 2016 at 8:53 pm
    Reply

    How to get the SHA-1 from MSDN

    MSDN Link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/

    Browse Box “Products A-Z” , Select “W”.
    Select the OS you want.
    After landing on the the new page, either scroll to the ISO you need, or use the check boxes to the left to narrow your search. You may to check “All” instead of “32 or 64 bit”. On the listing of the ISO you downloaded, select “Details”.

    Examples below:

    This media refresh includes the installation hotfix described in KB Article 2534111. No other changes have been made to the product.
    File Name: en_windows_7_professional_with_sp1_x64_dvd_u_676939.iso
    Languages: English
    SHA1: 0BCFC54019EA175B1EE51F6D2B207A3D14DD2B58

    This media refresh includes the installation hotfix described in KB Article 2534111. No other changes have been made to the product.
    File Name: en_windows_7_ultimate_with_sp1_x64_dvd_u_677332.iso
    Languages: English
    SHA1: 36AE90DEFBAD9D9539E649B193AE573B77A71C83

    1. anonymous123 said on March 21, 2020 at 4:48 am
      Reply

      OLD POST=NEW REPLY

      if you search file name in google you get archive.org.

      here is a link to windows 7 professional iso

      extract it using ntlite , delete ei.cfg under sources\ei.cfg or edit with notepad. add edition name (example: professional) and create ISO using ntlite. burn to disc.

  19. Von Thizzle said on March 19, 2016 at 8:23 pm
    Reply

    Martin, great article as usual. Thank you
    Perhaps post a link to Microsoft’s SHA-1 hashes or include them in the article?

  20. Techie said on March 13, 2016 at 10:23 pm
    Reply

    This is awesome! Superb.

  21. Rollo said on March 12, 2016 at 4:08 pm
    Reply

    Great!! I just finished downloading Win 7 Ultimate 32/64.
    Good job!

  22. Sam said on February 20, 2016 at 6:42 pm
    Reply

    old post I’ve seen that in another thread a while ago

  23. A different Martin said on February 19, 2016 at 12:54 am
    Reply

    Thanks very much, Martin. This is very handy for computers with OEM Windows 7 or 8.1. You can never be certain that you won’t have to reinstall from scratch one day.

  24. Hollister said on February 18, 2016 at 7:57 pm
    Reply

    Martin, cheeck the mail subscription code. It seems there’s a problem with a html tag

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on February 18, 2016 at 9:05 pm
      Reply

      Fixed, thanks for letting me know.

      1. Hollister said on February 18, 2016 at 9:58 pm
        Reply

        Thanks to you

  25. Decent60 said on February 18, 2016 at 6:05 pm
    Reply

    May need to reload the page. English and English International are both available on all editions (didn’t check K series tho).

  26. backslash said on February 18, 2016 at 4:10 pm
    Reply

    nevermind…

  27. backslash said on February 18, 2016 at 1:00 pm
    Reply

    Is Windows 7 Home Basic = Windows 7 Home Starter?

  28. LAP said on February 18, 2016 at 9:59 am
    Reply

    I prefer the windows windows 7 onwards are crap and worse every time Windows 10 want to know more about you. He distrusted Windows 10, I mean by the news that there was in the vicinity of the security / privacy.

  29. Anonymous said on February 18, 2016 at 9:26 am
    Reply

    If you visit the Microsoft download pages for 8.1 and 10 ISOs with a non-Windows browser user agent, you can just download the ISO files directly from Microsoft rather than have to download and build locally with the Media Creation Tool. I much prefer this method as it allows you to hash check the ISOs as intact/legit. It works with simple user agent browser extensions on Windows. I’m not sure if it would work with Windows 7 ISOs too.

  30. CEKI said on February 18, 2016 at 7:35 am
    Reply

    are versions OEM, MSDN, RTM or RETAIL?

  31. Mister M. said on February 18, 2016 at 7:14 am
    Reply

    Another way to download Windows 7: http://mirror.corenoc.de/digitalrivercontent.net/ .

    1. A different Martin said on February 19, 2016 at 12:45 am
      Reply

      @ Mister M.: Like LAP, I used the digitalrivercontent page for the checksums. Thanks!

    2. LAP said on February 18, 2016 at 10:01 am
      Reply

      Thanks, helped me to corroborate the MD5 and SHA1 not find a page with some information.

  32. mikef90000 said on February 18, 2016 at 4:25 am
    Reply

    I believe that Tech Bench is the page linked from the Insider home page, and the latest Win10 ISO did Not have any updates since the original was posted last year.
    Am I right?
    In case of disaster I would like to have a ISO available with *current* updates, service packs, etc. applied.

  33. Niks said on February 18, 2016 at 4:24 am
    Reply

    What does “LE” mean?

  34. Heinz Quatember said on February 17, 2016 at 10:24 pm
    Reply

    the November update did not work for me so i rolled back to windows 10 , how can i download it again ?? it does not come up in windows update .

  35. Tim said on February 17, 2016 at 8:56 pm
    Reply

    8.1 Pro only has an “LE” version… What does the “LE” stand for?

  36. S2015 said on February 17, 2016 at 6:20 pm
    Reply

    For those wondering:
    * Installing 10 on 7 directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSRqDpu-ZTA
    * then uninstalling 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLALZDuxlJc
    Apparently, playing such a game on VMware Station is a better choice.

  37. captainpixystick said on February 17, 2016 at 4:34 pm
    Reply

    Hey, Martin. I’m a daily visitor and it’s great seeing this here. Wanted you all to know I created two userscripts to assist in this process:

    1. Microsoft ISO Downloader: http://pastebin.com/raw/fczzF7Xp

    2. Minimal Microsoft Clutter (this is a CSS modification to allow for more screen space/quicker navigation): http://pastebin.com/raw/2DmPhydy

    For those wondering: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4639ly/download_official_isos_of_windows_7_windows_81/

    1. capt said on June 22, 2016 at 1:26 pm
      Reply

      Following up on my own post here, but the “declutter” script no longer works. DO NOT USE as it will interfere with the dialog buttons needed.

    2. Advertisement said on February 17, 2016 at 6:02 pm
      Reply

      Thanks! It works after added it in GreaseMonkey!
      But do this download contains cumulative updates too (and if ‘yes’ which is the last date of the updates)? I’ve already had an SP1 ISO of Win7 x64 for a clean installation in this week, but I’ve have a list of ‘not apreciate’ updates too referred to Win10 upgrading to manual keep out.
      Thanks Martin, always useful topics.

    3. Martin Brinkmann said on February 17, 2016 at 5:29 pm
      Reply

      Thanks, this should be useful ;)

  38. Mofo said on February 17, 2016 at 4:31 pm
    Reply

    Are these isos newer than the ones found on digitalriver a year or two ago? Those were like from 2011 and took ages to install all the updates.

    1. Mofo said on February 18, 2016 at 2:23 pm
      Reply

      Replying to myself here, like a true mofo: I downloaded 7 Ultimate SP1 and extracted it. It’s in fact from 2011, so updating these babies will take maaaaany hours. The positive side: Uncheck and hide all of the countless Windows 10 related “updates” and enjoy a nice clean OS.

    2. Corky said on February 18, 2016 at 10:24 am
      Reply

      AFAIK Microsoft haven’t released or created any newer versions since Windows 7 SP1, can’t speak for 8.x or 10 as 7 is going to be my last Microsoft OS.

    3. Major Tom said on February 18, 2016 at 5:13 am
      Reply

      That’s a very good question. Nothing worse than doing a clean install from an old Windows 7 SP1 iso and having to download and install what seems like hundreds of updates. I’ve always kept a system image of the Windows 7 after all the updates have been installed.

  39. Anonymous said on February 17, 2016 at 2:35 pm
    Reply

    How up-to-date is the Windows 8.1 ISO, can anyone please tell me? Does it have Update 1 or latest cumulative updates integrated?

    1. Bob Hill said on February 17, 2016 at 8:18 pm
      Reply

      Using this method (many thanks, Martin!) I downloaded Windows 8.1 English 32-bit, ran sha1sum against it, and got:
      c7fa828e01e98b601e0aca8019f1cb223eb23223
      Then I looked at the MSDN Win8.1 downloads (you can look, but not download, without an MSDN subscription, but you do need a free Microsoft account, such as Hotmail):
      https://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/securedownloads/?#searchTerm=&ProductFamilyId=545&Languages=en&PageSize=50&PageIndex=0&FileId=0
      The entry titled “Windows 8.1 with Update (multiple editions) (x86) – DVD (English)” matches the SHA1 above, so it must be the same as my download. This Win8.1 iso was released 2014.12.15, and includes the November 2014 Update Rollup. Hopefully the same applies to the iso’s for other versions of Win8.1 extracted from Tech Bench.

  40. zabouca said on February 17, 2016 at 1:02 pm
    Reply

    A couple of things with your instructions Martin…

    1. On the Pastbin page, scroll down to the box labelled “RAW Paste Data” and copy from there.

    2. After pasting the code in the console you must press Enter before you can select an edition.

    Nevertheless, thanks mucho for the info.

    1. Dave said on February 17, 2016 at 2:04 pm
      Reply

      You also have to type “allow pasting” if you’ve not done it before on your profile (Fx)

    2. Karol said on February 17, 2016 at 1:17 pm
      Reply

      I did it via Scratchpad in Firefox:
      1.paste text into Scratchpad
      2.execute menu-reload and run

  41. Alexi said on February 17, 2016 at 12:31 pm
    Reply

    It’s not working. After validating, it shows “error”. Tried with different browsers, still got error.

    1. Decent60 said on February 18, 2016 at 6:01 pm
      Reply

      Both x64 and x32 of Windows 7 Ultimate and Professional worked for me.

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on February 17, 2016 at 12:51 pm
      Reply

      Strange, worked fine on my end. What have you selected?

      1. Alexi said on February 18, 2016 at 9:36 am
        Reply

        Windows 7 Ultimate SP1

  42. Karol said on February 17, 2016 at 12:10 pm
    Reply

    I was not able to download W7 Home Premium in Czech…

  43. Karol said on February 17, 2016 at 11:45 am
    Reply

    Are the Windows just 32 bit?

    1. Wally said on February 18, 2016 at 2:15 pm
      Reply

      You can choose either 32- or 64-bit versions. This is the last step.

  44. paulo oliveira said on February 17, 2016 at 10:29 am
    Reply

    exellent tip, Martin :)

  45. Tom Hawack said on February 17, 2016 at 10:16 am
    Reply

    I notice on Microsoft’s Tech Bench website that tabs concerning Windows 7 an 8.1 make these versions downloadable as well, provided you enter the product key. What’s the point?

    1. Karol said on February 17, 2016 at 11:44 am
      Reply

      Not available for users with Windows 7 OEM.

      1. seeprime said on February 17, 2016 at 5:58 pm
        Reply

        If you have the Windows 7 OEM sticker with the product key on the case, these ISO’s will install and activate for you.

  46. tek said on February 17, 2016 at 9:54 am
    Reply

    Neat Martin just what I was looking for many thanks my friend

  47. Hollister said on February 17, 2016 at 9:39 am
    Reply

    Interesting.
    I didn’t even know that I could download Windows 10 with 1511 update incorporated.
    Win10 media creation tool doesn’t have it :(

    1. Armond said on February 18, 2016 at 3:03 am
      Reply

      Are you sure? I believe media creation tool downloads version 1511 of Windows 10.

  48. John Smith said on February 17, 2016 at 9:21 am
    Reply

    Thank You ^_^

  49. Adithya FRK said on February 17, 2016 at 9:17 am
    Reply

    That’s Pretty neat but the links are already on msdn

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on February 17, 2016 at 9:20 am
      Reply

      Not everyone has access to MSDN though. If you do, that’s your preferred choice of course.

      1. mircea said on March 10, 2016 at 12:11 pm
        Reply

        it,s not working ,,can anyone help me please

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on March 10, 2016 at 12:39 pm
        Reply

        What is not working, please describe what happens.

      3. Anatoly Nechaev said on February 19, 2016 at 11:08 am
        Reply

        MSDN has an SHA hashes of said images though.

        Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know what i mean…

      4. Adithya FRK said on February 18, 2016 at 8:19 am
        Reply

        No i got my links from here >> http://downloadstation007.blogspot.in/2013/05/genuine-windows-7-ultimate-sp1-included.html

        EDIT: Now it’s not working LOL

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