Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Microsoft is giving Win7 SP1 and Win8.1 users a free upgrade to Win10 for up to 1 year after it is released to manufacturing. I think it is well within their rights to tighten down ISO downloads of their products. Further, they are enforcing the support responsibility of the OEM per the licensing agreement. This is business, nothing personal.

Beat up the OEM for not providing separate install media with the machine.
Beat up the OEM for not providing an ISO download and charging a hefty fee to 'manufacture' a disc.
Beat up the OEM for providing bloated Recovery that requires 4 or 5 DVD discs instead of one DVD for Windows.

Please don't beat up MS for providing the download for 6 years and then removing that access after support for Windows 7 has formerly ended. They still provide a mechanism to download install media if you have a retail license. That's fair - OEM's are supposed to support OEM licenses.

I cannot advocate copying software from a friends disc - software paid my bills for many years and copying it is stealing. I also cannot advocate downloading anything but a legal copy of any software (no torrents, no pirate bays).

So what can a user do now? I see three options

1. Create the OEM install media - bloat included.
   Some OEMs have seen the light and offer a minimal install (essentially Windows only) option in their recovery application.
   
   
2. Use Windows AIK or ADK to create a clean wim using the OEM Recovery wim. This is your OEM licensed Windows, all you're doing is stripping off the OEM bloat from the install package. It's been a very long time since I've used AIK, so you're on your own - I'd have to read up just the same as you.
   
   
3. Purchase a legal version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.x

I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a child with only one foot.

Bill
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Code:

Microsoft is giving Win7 SP1 and Win8.1 users a free upgrade to Win10 for up to 1 year after it is released to manufacturing.

Hmm a bit OT but my brother in the UK did that and wrecked the machine admittedly after seeking advice from some scumbag and he didn't like it at all and reinstalled 8.1.

Personally and it is my own preference I do like 7 the best as in 8 they created to me a monster.

I have a friend who has a Win 7 disk, I read in this tutorial that if I wanted to I could have my friend rip it and then burn the .ISO to a DVD.

Would it also be possible for him to download the ISO from “Microsoft Software Recovery” and then burn the .ISO for me, or is the download from there different somehow?


Also, it’s the product key that’s the unique part, and not what’s on the disk right?
I don’t want to affect my friend’s ability to get updates or his allotment for how many different PCs he can install onto.


Thanks.

So just to be clear:

The downloaded ISO from “Microsoft Software Recovery” and a ripped one are both the same?

And the downloaded one is actually preferable because, the physical DVD could have degraded?

thanks.