14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is all about Windows 10 these days, especially as the end-of-support for Windows 7 is approaching.
However, it looks like Microsoft hasn’t completely forgotten about its previous Windows versions, so this week, the company decided to roll out new ISO images for both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
You probably didn’t see this coming, especially because the software giant is hard at work to get Windows 10 version 1809 (October 2018 Update) ready for all devices across the world, but users who want to clean-install any of the two OS releases mentioned above can now get the official images from Microsoft.
Previously, Microsoft was offering Windows ISOs via Digital River downloads, but the company then decided to pull them completely without providing a different ISO download method.
Product keys required
The software giant decided to stick with Windows 10 since its launch, so even if it continued to support both Windows 7 and 8.1, no official ISO images were offered to users. The Microsoft download page now lets you choose the version of Windows 10 that you want to download the images for.
Oddly enough, while for Windows 7 you are requested to provide a 25-digit product key before the download, the process is different in the case of Windows 8.1.
For Windows 8.1 users, Microsoft offers the typical wizard that lets them choose what ISO image they want to download, all without asking for a product key. However, a key would be required to install the operating system.
The most recent ISO images for Windows 10 are for the October 2018 Update (version 1809) originally published in early October and then re-released in November.
All ISOs are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors and they can be downloaded in a series of languages that you can configure right from the download page.
Via Thurrott