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Re-Install Win 7 on OEM - Legal Download

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KenB

KenB

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Update 11 Feb 2015

Windows-7 used to be available for public download on servers owned by Digital River, Microsoft's service provider for e-commerce. As of February 2015, these downloads have been pulled. "Free" access to the OS disk images is somewhat limited now, but a few options remain.

The available downloads are now from Micro$oft own site - click here
However, you may find that OEM installations ( De11 / HP etc ) are not readily available as a download.
If this is the case then you will need to contact M-Soft - see here
There is bound to be a fee involved if you require M-Soft to send you a disk.

I will leave the tutorial and links below for the time being as a record of better days.

=================================================================

If you have Win 7 on an OEM installation ( De!! / HP / A cer etc ) and the hard-drive dies and you have no recovery disks - you may think that this is going to cost you lots to repair. This may not be the case.


I had a friend's laptop in this morning and, on testing, the hard drive was completely dead.
No recovery disks either.

Solution?

Download an ISO image of your Win7 Home Premium system from Digital River.


Please be aware - There is now a SP1 version of these downloads. You MUST download the SP1 version from Digital River if you intend doing a "Repair Install" and this is what you have on the system already. These versions below have SP1. Please be careful what you download.
====================
The 32 bit Home Premium SP1 version - http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58996.iso
The 64 bit Home Premium SP1 version - http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58997.iso

The 32 bit Professional SP1 version - http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59183.iso
The 64 bit Professional SP1 version - http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso

The 32 bit Ultimate SP1 version - http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59463.iso
The 64 bit Ultimate SP1 version - http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59465.iso

====================
Not what you are looking for ?
Try here:http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso
be prepared for a 30+ minute download :)
You need to check carefully which OS you have - I was working with Home Premium 32 bit.

If you are unsure if you had 32 or 64 bit take the RAM out and add the two values together.
If you have less than 4GB then you can safely assume you have 32 bit.
More than 4GB - 64 bit.

Once downloaded you need to burn the ISO image to a DVD ( it is far too big for a CD )
Install the DVD in the drive and right click on the file that you have just downloaded.
If you have "Burn Disk Image" or similar click on this and the burn process will begin.

If not you will need to use some ISO burning software ( can be found free )

Once you have the DVD you are almost there.

I then installed a spare hard drive I had into the laptop.

Check that the CDROM is the first boot device in the BIOS.

Insert the newly burned DVD into the drive and switch on.
Win 7 install process starts.

You will need the Product Code off the sticker on the machine.
This is the 25 character code on the Microsoft sticker.

Once complete you will need to activate the installation.
You have 30 days to do this.

I did this by phone - it is automated and you don't speak to anybody.
You are given 9 blocks of numbers - 6 numbers in each block - that you type in.
That's it.

Windows 7 installed - and legal.

The whole process took about an hour and a half.
 
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