I’m going to present a scenario here that’s common to many computer owners.
You have a laptop. It’s a good laptop and you don’t want to get rid of it. It runs fine but you’ve decided to switch out the primary hard drive drive with SSD, so you have to reinstall Windows.
However, there’s a problem. You don’t have a Windows operating system installation disc. You do however have the license to run it, because on the bottom of the laptop is a Microsoft sticker and your Product Key is right there; that’s what makes your Windows legal to begin with.
Now you have a dilemma. You don’t need a Windows license because you already have one ready to go that’s 100% legal, yet you don’t want to spend over 100 bucks just to get a disc and a Windows license you don’t even need.
Should you download a torrent of the Windows OS?
Nope, you don’t have to. If you have your Product Key and just need an ISO of Windows 7, there are official places to download the bootable ISO you need.
Very important notes (and you must do all of this)
1. You must download the EXACT version of Windows that’s listed on your Microsoft sticker.
If the sticker says “Windows 7 Home Premium”, that’s the version you need to download, meaning you can’t give yourself a free upgrade to Win7 Ultimate.
2. During the (re)activation process after installing Win7, it may require a phone call to Microsoft to complete your product key validation.
I’ve had to do this before, and it’s easy. All the “Activation Center” phone numbers for Microsoft are right here. For the US in particular, it’s (888) 352-7140.
3. If your Windows 7 version has “OA” in it, it’s pretty much guaranteed you’ll have to call Microsoft to complete activation.
Example: If the sticker says “Windows 7 Home Prem OA”, that simply means it’s an OEM-installed Win7 license. When you go to reinstall, you’re obviously not the OEM, so the attempt to reactivate your license will most likely fail, requiring you to call a Microsoft Activation Center to finish up the process.
As I said above, calling Microsoft for license activation is not a big deal. You’re reinstalling Windows on the same machine, using the same OS version, and when Microsoft asks why you need to reactivate the license, you can be completely honest and say you just switched out your old hard drive for a new SSD.
Download links for Windows 7
32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate x86 SP1 (bootable)
64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 (bootable)
32-bit Windows 7 Professional x86 SP1 (bootable)
64-bit Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 (bootable)
32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium x86 SP1 (bootable)
64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium X64 SP1 (bootable)
Yes, they’re all SP1 versions and yes, they’re all 100% legal to download as long as you use your existing product key for the appropriate product. The downloads are from Digital River, an official Microsoft partner. It’s all legal, not to worry.
These are DVD ISOs, so they’re huge. You may want to consider using a download manager. Or you can simply launch a separate browser other than your primary and just let that sit and download until it’s done. For example, if you use Chrome or Firefox as your primary browser, launch IE, come to this article and download the ISO with that browser. Minimize IE and it will download the ISO uninterrupted while you use your other regular primary browser to do your normal internet stuff.
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Do you have office 2010 links?
are they available for vista too?
Your version of Win7 also varies too. If your OEM license key version is without SP1 then it won’t activate and you will be forced to call. If you use the non-SP1 OEM version of the OS and then use your non-SP1 OEM key off of the bottom of the machine, then you will fly right through it no problem. Either way you get the benefit of having zero factory bloat/ branding loaded during the install.
I know this problem exists on XP for sure and I’m assuming that it hasn’t changed for Win7 so this was just a heads up for anyone reading later on.
Can You do this for Windows XP also?
Yes if you have the correct version of XP on .iso. You can’t use a SP1 disc on a non-SP1 license key and so forth. Microsoft uses a different algorithm to make a new set of keys for each version and service pack release of each version. Home brew slipstreaming doesn’t work either from what I remember. (i.e. taking a non-SP1 disc, slipstreaming SP1 and then using a SP1 key)
Very helpful article! I do have a question that maybe someone knows, but how does Dell get away without putting a sticker on the bottom of their PCs? I’ve had about 6 customers without stickers and I’ve had to deal with Dell Support to get a replacement System Restore disc because it has the license built-in. What gives? Dell Consumer support is terrible by the way. Told me it was going to be 3+ weeks to get me the last system restore discs I requested. So the customer agreed to just go purchase a Retail copy of the Win 7 Home Premium.