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Comment by milankragujevic | Hacker News Reader

I like how even thought I got windows 10 home with my laptop I can't install it from anywhere because the laptop didn't come with a recovery USB and the recovery partition got corrupted so basically I have to rely on downloading so-called "MSDN" images from torrents and hope for the best, verifying the hashes along the way...

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That's simply untrue. You can download a copy of Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft. [0] It's the first search result if you Google Windows 10 ISO.

Plus, most laptops don't come with a recovery USB (neither do Macs) and IMO having a recovery partition is silly when installing it from scratch is cleaner/easier.

[0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Maybe on windows 7 or 8/8.1, but on 10 I see no download, how can I download an ISO without downloading a program? Plus let's say I have a metered connection (that I often do, when I'm away from home) and my windows 10 broke by itself as it often does? I can't go to a library or something and download the iso because I don't have admin permissions and microsoft's tool requires admin permissions. I'm not trying to criticize the OS for this, it already has been criticized enough for spyware, but seriously microsoft is just making it harder for me to use their software legally. Also the confusion about buying an OEM license and why there are no retail licenses in Serbia?

If you browse from windows, that page only shows Microsoft's special "Download Program".

If you browse from linux, it shows links to directly download the ISO files.

I'm not sure what it does if you browse from MacOS.

Maybe try changing your browser's useragent? Frankly, it is a bit annoying that Microsoft tries to push their download tool.

> I'm not sure what it does if you browse from MacOS.

ISO

Huh? Select Home/Pro. Select language. Download button appears for both 32/64 bit. No special software, just a download link.

http://imgur.com/bcj3z57

Does 'More download options' reveal more options?

http://i.imgur.com/s4ElZFt.png

Nothing relevant:

>Sign in to the Volume Licensing Service Center to download Enterprise editions.

>Sign in to your subscription on the MSDN Portal for MSDN downloads.

> Visit the Windows Insider site to download Insider Preview builds

> Visit the Download Academic Products page for Education editions (product key required).

Jeez, just when I thought Microsoft was getting better about letting people...actually download their software... they go and create pages that display completely different things based on what OS you're running.

You have a good point. As a specific solution to that problem though, I would suggest Rufus. It runs without system privileges.

Link is actually https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...

This is a hidden cost of non-open software.

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