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I need to repair my Windows 10 installation. Where can I get a clean ISO (with install.wim, no Install.ESD, so that I can run DISM against the WIM) of the specific Windows 10 build required for this?

In my case, I need the Anniversary update (Build 14393), Creators Update (Build 15063) or Fall Creators Update (Build 16299.15).

I say Reinstate Monica
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magicandre1981
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    Media Creation tool can be used as well. You can create the ISO or USB disk which ever. Using MCT, the ISO would have install.esd instead of install.wim. FYI. – w32sh Aug 04 '16 at 13:49
  • @w32sh that is why I linked to the page to get proper ISOs with install.wim – magicandre1981 Aug 04 '16 at 14:53
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    If you want ISOs from the official source (i.e. microsoft.com), this answer has it – caw Feb 07 '20 at 01:26
  • the solution link from @caw is better than the other solutions because 100% you are using microsoft websites. the other solutions by magicandre1981 and flolilo are good but they are third-party websites that could lead to accidently downloading (or tricking you into downloading) malicious files or getting a bad iso file. (CodeIt solution is good because it is 100% microsoft but it does not go the extra step and show you how to download the iso file directly). – Trevor Boyd Smith Sep 22 '21 at 00:11
  • if you need an older windows ISO image file then definitely you need the solution by @magicandre1981 because the official microsoft website only offers the latest windows ISO file. – Trevor Boyd Smith Sep 22 '21 at 00:18

5 Answers5

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Microsoft is no longer providing the clean ISOs (with proper Boot.wim and Install.wim and not ESD files so that you can use DISM to serve them) on a website.

But some users were able to find a way to generate download links.

  • open this website
  • under Select type: select Windows (Final)
  • under Select version: select Windows 10 Version 1607, Redstone1 [Jul2016]
  • under Select edition:select which ISo you want. Most home users want Windows 10 Pro + Home
  • select under Select language: your language
  • now select if you want 32 or 64Bit ISO:

enter image description here

On the right site you can find now download buttons for the selected ISO.

If you want other ISOs for Windows 10 Creators Update, select Windows 10 Version 1703, Redstone2 [March 2017] - Build 15063.0.

enter image description here

If you want other ISOs for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, select Windows 10 Version 1709, Redstone3 [September 2017] - Build 16299.15.

enter image description here

If you want ISOs for the Windows 10 April 2018 Update (Version 1803), select Windows 10 Version 1803, Redstone4 [Apr 2018] - Build 17134.1.

enter image description here

magicandre1981
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14

Another way to download the ISO file is by using the Media Creation Tool. Download it here. Follow the instructions to download the ISO file of the Anniversary Update.

CodeIt
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    I've tried using the Media Creation Tool to install the anniversary update, and while it successfully downloaded several gigabytes and spent 30 minutes installing something, it simply reinstalled version 1511.Watch out that the ISO it downloads is actually the anniversary update and not an earlier version. – André Borie Aug 04 '16 at 14:15
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    @AndréBorie I successfully downloaded 1607 using the MCT downloaded yesterday morning. I guess the tool that you'd used might be an older version. – CodeIt Aug 04 '16 at 14:18
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Official Links

Microsoft provides Windows 10 ISO for both Anniversary and Creators update till now. To download that ISO file, you need to change useragent in your PC browser or use a different device other than PC. Here I use Firefox but Chrome can also be used.

Here are the two links required:

  1. PC link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
  2. Mobile link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

Open Firefox (newer versions), press Ctrl+Shift+M, which opens Responsive Design Mode. Open the #1 PC link in Firefox, Choose the screen size as you want, Change useragent in the box saying Custom User Agent, Type useragent randomly (e.g. abc), Refresh (F5) that webpage and you will be automatically redirected to mobile webpage.

Mobile_Webpage

That webpage declares

"You’ve been routed to this page because the operating system you’re using won’t support the Windows 10 media creation tool and we want to make sure you can download Windows 10"

Then choose Windows edition, product language, and 32bit or 64bit. Remember the download link only valid upto 24 hours.

Select_Edition

Alternatively, you can change useragent type about:config into Firefox’s address bar, right-click on the page, point to New, and select String, name the preference general.useragent.override, enter your desired user agent as the value of the preference. Check useragent in Whatismybrowser.com.

Change_User agent

Further reading::

  1. Responsive Design Mode#Saving custom devices
  2. Reset default user agent firefox
  3. HTG: Change Browser useragent without extensions
Community
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Biswapriyo
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    I personally like this method as it ensures i'm getting the file directly from Microsoft, compared to the other methods which involve a 3rd party and opportunity for tampering. This can be done with IE as well. Open IE and go to the media creation tool website. Press F12 to open developer tools and click on the Emulation tab. Change User agent string to Custom and enter whatever you want in the Custom string field. The page will refresh using the new user agent and do just like you described. – lightwing May 23 '19 at 15:28
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    This is indeed the best solution. You can also just visit the first link (“https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10”) on an Android, iOS, macOS or Linux device and skip all the other steps. Just pick your version via the form and start the download. – caw Feb 07 '20 at 01:25
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    This no longer offers options other than the latest edition. – rudivonstaden Sep 15 '20 at 15:44
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Personally, I like to use Jan Krohn's Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool for downloading the ISOs - it is a standalone-tool that will start the requested download from Microsoft's servers. Here is a screenshot of the GUI:

Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool GUI

The ISO it provides seems to be the same as the one from the website suggested by magicandre1981 (checked SHA-1).

You can also copy the ISO's link via a button and copy it into a download tool like JDownloader.

The possible disadvantages to this tool are:

  • You may need the latest version to find new OS versions,
  • It asks for donating idle system resources. However, you can deny that request without drawbacks.
flolilo
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3

Method A: Using Rufus

Since version 3.5, you can use Rufus to make download requests for Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 ISO image files from Microsoft servers which will include sources\install.wim.

  1. Download Rufus (version 3.5 or higher).

  2. Run the Rufus EXE file. Provide admin credentials if requested by the UAC prompt.

  3. Click on the arrow next to the "SELECT" button and select "DOWNLOAD".

  4. Now click on the "DOWNLOAD" button and a "Download ISO Image" dialog box will appear where you can select between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 and specify Release (build), Edition, Language and Architecture.

  5. After specifying what to download, click on the Download button in the dialog box and Rufus will start the download and display the download progress bar. (Optionally, you can check the box "Download using a browser" in which case you will get a file download prompt in your default web browser.)

Once downloaded, you can either use Rufus to write the ISO file to a USB flash drive and create your Windows installation media or close Rufus and keep your downloaded ISO file.

Troubleshooting: No download option

If you don't see the arrow next to the "SELECT" button, you won't be able to switch over to download mode and click on the "DOWNLOAD" button to download Windows ISO files.

Rufus - missing option to display the download button

This is because the option "Check for updates" is disabled in Settings. The option name is arguably misleading as it not only blocks Rufus from checking for updates; it blocks all network access, which affects ISO file downloads from third party (Microsoft) servers. So you need to enable "Check for updates" for the "DOWNLOAD" button to appear.

Rufus - check for updates

This option is enabled by default and is set to check for updates daily (set to 86400 seconds in registry). Why you find it disabled may be because you have used Rufus earlier with your current user profile and you have opted out of update checking at some point. This is especially true for the regular version of Rufus where all the settings are stored in the Windows registry. So even when you delete the Rufus EXE file, the settings are preserved and can be used the next time you download and run Rufus. The portable version of Rufus stores its settings in the rufus.ini file which it creates automatically the first time it runs. More useful info on regular and portable version of Rufus can be found in Note 1 below.

If you have not used Rufus with your current user profile, then you should see this prompt the first time you run it:

"Do you want to allow Rufus to check for application updates online?"

Rufus - check for updates prompt

You need to say Yes here. If you're not seeing the prompt, you can remove your current settings to trigger the prompt once more. For the portable version, you can simply delete the rufus.ini file. For the regular version, you can do either one of the following two things:

  • Shortcut: While Rufus is running, press Alt + R and Rufus will delete the appropriate Windows registry keys and values.

  • Registry: Run Regedit and manually delete the UpdateCheckInterval value from the Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Akeo Consulting\Rufus key.

If you decide to manually edit your Windows registry, don't delete the entire Akeo Consulting key as Windows can fail to recreate it later on when you run Rufus. In my tests, Windows only recreates it once. If you don't see this key despite having run regular version of Rufus at least once, you can and should manually create the Akeo Consulting\Rufus key hierarchy as a dummy place holder without any values, which Rufus will automatically populate when you run it the next time.

Note 1: Regular versions and portable versions of Rufus are binary identical. The only difference is that the portable versions are denoted with a "p" in their file names – e.g. rufus-3.15p.exe – where the "p" serves as a flag for the app to change behavior (to auto-create rufus.ini and store the settings in there, or not to auto-create the file and rather use the Windows registry to store settings). Also note that an empty INI file can be created manually so that even the regular version of Rufus can use an INI file to store its settings. Alternatively, you can also make it create the INI file automatically by simply inserting the "p" flag in its file name and it will change behavior to that of the portable version. This is all well documented in the Rufus FAQ over at GitHub.

Note 2: As of version 3.15, additional safety checks may require you to explicitly run the EXE file with admin privileges in order to run the download script. Right click on the EXE file and click on "Run as administrator".

Demo: downloading Anniversary Update ISO

As shown by these screenshots, I am using Rufus to download Windows 10 version 1607 (build 14393), also known as Anniversary Update (also known as Redstone 1).

Rufus - select image Rufus - download image Rufus - specify image to download Rufus - image download progress Rufus - image downloaded and ready

After downloading, I have mounted the image in File Explorer and you can tell by the screenshot below that it contains the install.wim file.

Win10_1607_English_x64.iso mounted in file explorer

Method B: Using Fido

Fido is a PowerShell script made by the creator of Rufus. It's the same script that Rufus 3.5 itself uses to download ISO image files of Windows. If you only need to download the ISO file (you don't need to write it to a USB), then all you need is Fido.

  1. To get Fido, just right click on the Fido.ps1 file on its GitHub repo page and save the script to your computer.

  2. To run the script, open PowerShell with admin rights at the location where the script is.

  3. Send the command Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted to grant execution rights. Answer with Y to confirm.

  4. Then type in .\Fido.ps1 and hit Enter. Answer with R to run once.

You should get the dialog box as seen in the screenshots above.

Samir
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  • as of version 3.15 there is no download features or buttons in the rufus application. but i did try to look for one extensively. – Trevor Boyd Smith Sep 22 '21 at 00:07
  • Yes and no. Apparently, as of version 3.15, additional "safety checks" have been put in place. So I figured you might need to run the application with admin privileges and it worked. So just right click the EXE file and "Run as administrator" and you will get the option to download the ISO. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I will update my answer. – Samir Sep 22 '21 at 10:01
  • hey i happened to check the rufus log file. there is a note about "Notice: The ISO download feature has been deactivated because 'Check for updates' is disabled in your settings." so i think rufus still has the download option. – Trevor Boyd Smith Sep 25 '21 at 13:38
  • I was able to replicate your experience multiple times now by disabling update checking. So when "Check for updates" is disabled Rufus will not present the Download button for ISO files and the log message you mentioned will appear in the Log view. This issue is discussed by the author over on GitHub. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 14:51
  • However, when I tested this earlier in September, I did not have to explicitly enable update checking as suggested. It was presumably already enabled by default. I'm not sure at this point. I do know for sure that I did not see the Download button either after just double clicking on the EXE file to run the app. It only appeared after I right clicked on it and selected to run it as admin. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 15:04
  • The case I described above may have been some sort of glitch in the Windows registry of my current Windows installation. As an admin user I should not have to explicitly run the app as admin, it should be enough to double click the EXE file and answer Yes when the UAC prompt pops up. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 22:47
  • So in order for Rufus to present the Download button, it must be allowed to check for updates (effectively given network access, including Fido.ps1 script and ISO file access). I have tested this extensively now and this is the most accurate explanation for why the Download button may not be presented. It needs to be allowed network access, which is done by allowing it to "check for updates" (misleading option and log text, as discussed over at GitHub). I will update my answer with these new details. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 22:52
  • There's a bit more to it though. Have you run Rufus more than once on the same computer? Did you run the portable or the regular version? In order to preserve the settings between restarts, Rufus stores them in the Windows registry. It actually does that regardless if it's the portable or the regular version. In fact, the EXE files are binary identical. Portable versions are denoted with a "p" as in rufus-3.15p.exe and it serves as a flag for the app to change behavior (auto-create rufus.ini and dump settings in there). – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 23:07
  • I usually run the regular version of Rufus from the Desktop, and without a manually created rufus.ini file. The benefit of running a portable version is that you can more easily clean up and reset the app settings in case you have deleted Rufus - like I do regularly from the Desktop - and then several months later decide to download a newer version for a new ISO job where you need Rufus again. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 23:14
  • It's easier to delete a .ini file than to run Regedit to clean up registry keys, and it doesn't require admin privileges. I suspect this is the source of the registry glitch I experienced, i.e. incompatible key values that may have changed between Rufus versions and no cleanup was performed prior to running the newer version of Rufus. The default setting for update checking is to check daily (or every 86400 seconds as the UpdateCheckInterval value will put it in registry). – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 23:17
  • How Rufus works with registry keys and what the difference is between portable and regular version is well documented in the FAQ. But regardless if it's portable or not, you need to be presented with this prompt: "Do you want to allow Rufus to check for application updates online?" Answering No hides the Download button; answering Yes makes it appear. However, the prompt only appears the first time you run the app! Like, for the lifetime or your Windows installation or your current user. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 23:29
  • So if you have used Rufus before on the same computer, and you used the regular version, chances are you already have some keys and values lurking in your registry, and if you have previously answered No - perhaps with a different version of Rufus - you will not be asked the same question again, it will rather accept your previous answer. So you need to make it forget your previous answer, and you do that by cleaning up your registry keys. There is no setup wizard for Rufus that does this automatically. You can do that within Regedit or by pressing Alt + R while Rufus is running. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 23:34
  • TL;DR: Use the portable version of Rufus next time. That way you can easily clean up after it by simply deleting its rufus.ini file along with the EXE file, and start fresh when you need Rufus again. I will adapt this practice myself. Thanks again! I will try to sum this up in the answer. – Samir Oct 02 '21 at 23:37