Many of you will know that when you buy a desktop PC or laptop from a manufacturer such as Dell, HP, Asus etc, as well as getting the pre installed operating system, your system will also come with a sticker on the bottom or side with a Windows product key. This key can be used if you ever need to reinstall a clean Windows from an installation media instead of a preinstalled recovery image or disk. The problem arises that when you want to do this, most purchased systems rarely come bundled with a clean Windows 7 DVD from where you can perform a nice, shiny, bloat free install. Phone up tech support and they will almost certainly charge a fee to send you a disk.
So, you want to put a clean Windows 7 on your machine, you have a legal Windows 7 product key and no way of installing it, which is a bit of an inconvenience to say the least. Obviously, there are ways to ‘source’ an image from various places, but you never know what you’re going to get with them. Thankfully there is a free and legal way to download the images (ISO’s) from Microsoft themselves.
All the Windows 7 images listed below come straight from Digital River which is an official Microsoft download channel and therefore, are completely untouched meaning no viruses, malware, hacks, cracks, loaders or anything else, just the official vanilla DVD’s in ISO form.
No need to worry about Service Pack 1 either, as this is included. These are ‘Media Refresh disks‘ released in May 2011, that along with SP1, also includes Microsoft hotfix KB2534111 which fixed a problem with the standard SP1 disk that would not allow any non ASCII characters when assigning the computer name. The European ‘N’ versions (stripped out media player software) are not included in the list.
A few things to note about these Windows 7 ISO’s:
- You do need a legal Windows 7 key and the install will need to be activated within 30 days. Look for the sticker on the bottom of your laptop or the side / back of your desktop.
- You cannot install a different Windows edition to the one listed on your sticker. ie; If the key is for ‘Home Premium’ you cannot get away with installing ‘Ultimate’.
- You can switch between 32bit and 64bit. ie; If you have ‘Home Premium’ 32bit currently installed, for the new install you can download and use ‘Home Premium’ 64bit using the same product key.
Click on the link you want to download, download managers are supported. The Microsoft SHA1 checksum values have been added to verify the integrity of the download.
English
Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit
SHA1:6071B4553FCF0EA53D589A846B5AE76743DD68FC
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
SHA1:6C9058389C1E2E5122B7C933275F963EDF1C07B9
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:D89937DF3A9BC2EC1A1486195FD308CD3DADE928
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:0BCFC54019EA175B1EE51F6D2B207A3D14DD2B58
Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit
SHA1:65FCE0F445D9BF7E78E43F17E441E08C63722657
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
SHA1:36AE90DEFBAD9D9539E649B193AE573B77A71C83
Spanish
Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit
SHA1:80583A3CC93230059BCA69DE8C0FFE0E01B353D4
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
SHA1:C3A2E4922CFB9A0DF06F338E82907B5F85757196
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:CFE1A580844315B84A7212F1CAEB84FDEEA49CE1
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:B9E03DDAABA98CD1102C59366238EC8D49DB7493
Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit
SHA1:5C1D3E8CFDC70DC44DC5AC1CB89CACC3C515B1E8
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
SHA1:AF4B835557B5F15B574A3A643EECAF922FC1236C
French
Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit
SHA1:82B93828E709A7E9886EA45A0C97B9AB667F118E
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
SHA1:7F3E41579C3404BA86D4A53EC13F69844F2473BE
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:CE8ADFD30A9E8F33B47C11579B4E6D1D445382FB
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:F9F0512F7CA5E2CD1502A41F6E88D80F4655BBCD
Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit
SHA1:6A4D873E82698F7BF157C67A69C2DB9BCE6C769E
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
SHA1:5370BB44F497E1B19114C7CF70F5CDEF9F3A2582
Italian
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:E35566B2668EA67201B891F517A2C31F8C6BAF62
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:C4C4A6493E2C45649BAF75A045CA922DB0C7CA58
Chinese (Taiwan)
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:92888FBCFD120CB932F46375EB216CEF8E5F9047
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:683810F804FDCFF58E9B5C9CE7DF8AF5CC73B019
Portuguese (Portugal)
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:BB419DBEFFF9283D7F4D3AC0A86299074BFAC94D
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:E1FB2ADFECD701C34C019A95B708A607C03C4C58
German
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:3EA8BF4F3F9524AEBFCB562BC41A248F5A6780E0
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:39D2E2924E186124EA44D2453069B34EF18EA45E
Dutch
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:252D823854EAA70E764664ABC0FFD0EAE402531B
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:036768613B50F51E21C661BE332E4B3560262429
Finnish
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:9F3B20A28A3CAA6305FB19368AF47828435001C7
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:9C3799057E6025A108FB3E96A0C5FF228D4702CA
Norwegian
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:2A052522BF16E4B5074EF645D819E1E6EAAC80B1
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:A4FD9856077028B518F48A2185F53524EBEADBA9
Swedish
Windows 7 Professional 32bit
SHA1:26523C64F8BD7369F1A03338EFEFB4CE892694C0
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
SHA1:3BB7B984EE4A37EE9A45B5453C1E1DA2CE3F9A85
Simply download the ISO you’re looking for and burn it with you favourite ISO burning software. Alternatively, right click on the ISO file in Windows 7 and select ‘Burn Disk Image’ or just double click on it.
These disks can very easily be converted into universal installation DVD’s supporting all Windows 7 editions apart from the Enterprise edition. There is only one file that needs to be deleted from the ISO. Open the image in suitable software, then look in the ‘Sources’ folder for the file ‘ei.cfg’. All it does is restrict the choice of Windows editions that can be installed with that particular DVD. Just remove it and resave the image. Or you could try the ei.cfg Removal Uitlity.
Do note that even though you may download a ‘Home Premium’ ISO and remove the ei.cfg file so you can now see ‘Professional’ and ‘Ultimate’ on the same disk, this does not mean you can now install ‘Professional’ or ‘Ultimate’ if you have a ‘Home Premium’ product key.
If you would like a tutorial on how to backup your activation data to restore onto a new install using a program called ‘Activation Backup and Restore’, Raymond wrote about it in THIS article.
Please note: This article is simply about obtaining a clean Windows distro to use with your legitimate product key, nothing else. If you’re looking to activate your Windows 7 install by other than official means, you will find no help here.
Thank you for link to Windows 7 Professional French.
Brilliant!! What about other language versions? I particularly miss Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit and 64bit.
If you want another language version of Home Premium, Norwegian for example, then download the Pro version and remove the ei.cfg file using the tool in the article or manually. This will give you all versions.
I don’t think any versions apart from those above ever got released as a download from Microsoft…
When Microsoft will make available to the ISO language PT-BR?
This was very valueable information!!
Thank you for sharing your entensive knowledge, it is appreciated.
Hugo Atlanta, GA
Hi,
there is an error in download links: link to “ITALIAN Windows 7 Professional 32bit” is actually “FRENCH Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit” (the upper one). You can see it by yourself, the file is the same (I grabbed it and it’s actually a french iso with sha1 5370BB44F497E1B19114C7CF70F5CDEF9F3A2582). I’m searching for the right location of the file, stay tuned ;)
Thanks for pointing that out! I had double pasted the French link. Italian 32bit is now correct.
Is it updated?
If you mean recently, no. These are updated with SP1 and a hotfix, all other updates since SP1 was released will need installing.
Thanks a lot for the links. I have been wondering all this while how to get a official ISO for OG OS owner. Slipstream methods are way too confusing for me.
Just a question though.
Having an original Windows 7 ultimate, if I download this SP1 integrated ISO, will it be considered as piracy?
If you own a legal key, there’s no problem using the ISO. Where it would be an issue, is using the ISO with a loader or crack to activate it.
Piracy doesn’t come into it because you have a license to use Windows in the form of the product key on the sticker. These images just give you the means to use the license you have already purchased from Microsoft.
Could you post hungarian versions too?
my sticker on my laptop is faded beyond readable, is there software i can use to show my key
i used this rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/winproductkey/download.shtml
and got a product ID and windows product key ( i believe this is the right one but how can i be sure) it has 5 sets of 5
thanks
Andy
Unfortunately Andy, the key you have there will be a different one from the sticker UNLESS you have used the key off the sticker before to reinstall 7 yourself. If not, the key shown in the utility you used will be a generic OEM one used by the manufacturer and can’t simply be entered during a standard install.
Try the Activation backup and Restore tool towards the bottom of the article that will backup your current activation data which can then be restored on the clean install.
thanks, i ran the backup and restore program and it comes up with the same key numbers as the RJL software, not the product ID (has OEM in it) but the windows product key are the same form both programs
Finally manage to download using flashget… tq for the article
Great ! I find it suprising that this hasn’t been uploader sooner the moment the iso’s became downloadable from the microsoft website.
Importend note: You can only change the language pack of the proffesional and ultimate version. Home premium doesnt support a change of language. So be sure you download the correct version.
I was really happy when i read this article knowing that I could get my original clean windows 7 home premiium 32bit again but then the download fails me… download manager gave out “error! size mismatch” while direct download only download the file as much as 700+kb… any other way around?
OK, I found a helpful list here:
forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/14709-Windows-7-Digital-River-direct-links-Multiple-Languages-X86-amp-X64/page60?p=470600&viewfull=1#post470600
Can you please supply links to Finnish and Swedish versions, too.
That was awesome!
Thanks. I recently spent an entire night searching for a legitimate link for this; Microsoft having shut down its previous links. Finally found one at a reputable but oh-so-slow site of 84k/second.
Ever try to download 2GB at 84k/s? Not a pleasant 12 hour experience, I can assure you; especially when the Microsoft links *used to* (and presumably still) do the job in 15 minutes
Would be nice if you can post the MD5 and SHA Sums so we can check the integrity of the downloads. Thanks.
Updated with SHA1 checksums direct from Microsoft Technet.
Thanks mate, much appreciated. I have checked the SHA sums and they are the same as the “refresh” media that was released a while back (last year) I’ve already got two USB Flash drives for Universal install. I remember creating them ages ago and yes, I did use ei.cfg to remove the limitation, so now I’ve got x86 & x64 Super fast SUB Install. Have used WinUSB or WinToFlash.