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Microsoft Finally Allows Customers To Legally Download Windows 7 ISOs
MojoKid writes: It's long been a pet peeve of many end users that Microsoft has made it such a challenge to procure a legitimate ISO image of its various operating systems. It seems like the company should have no problem offering them in an easy-to-find spot on its website, because after all, it's not like they can be taken utilized without a legal key. Sometimes, people simply lose the disc or ISO they had, and so it shouldn't be such a challenge to get a replacement. Fortunately, with a new feature on the Microsoft site, you are now able to get that replacement Windows 7 ISO. However, it's behind a bit of protection. You'll need to provide your legal product code, and then the language, in order to go through to the download page. If you've somehow lost your key but are still using the OS that it's tied to, you can retrieve it through a few different third party tools. However, it does seem like not all valid keys work properly just yet, since some users are reporting valid keys throwing errors or not enabling a download for some reason.
I've been downloading ISO's from MS for years.
You might want to qualify that. I know MSDN (MS Development Network) and TechNet (IT professionals) have had pre-release and release versions of ISOs available since before 2000 if I recall correctly, but that wasn't suitable for delivery to consumers, but services for software development and mid-to-larger corporate and enterprise customers, access was bundled by annual subscriptions, roughly $1000 USD and up.
I think retail license purchases & ISO download, or downloadable recovery ISOs via Digital River has been available since MS Vista, at least since 2011, but perhaps earlier. /shurg
Microsoft provides all the checksums, just find the ISO here and click "details"...
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/