14 DAY TRIAL // Downloading a Windows 10 ISO image from Microsoft’s website isn’t as easy as you’d be tempted to think, and it’s all because of a good reason.
Microsoft tried to make the process of updating to the latest version of Windows as straightforward as possible, so when loading the ISO download page with a Windows browser, the site actually serves you the Media Creation Tool.
If a different browser is detected, the website then points you to the ISO download page, which allows you to get the standalone images that you can then use for clean-installs or building bootable installation media.
Changing the user agent to get to the Windows 10 ISO download links has long served as the main trick for many people, but there’s now an app that does this for you.
Simply called Windows 10 ISO Download Tool, this simple program was designed from the very beginning to replace the user agent hack, so it’s built as a browser that comes with the right user agent to reach the ISO download page directly.
The interface of the app is nothing too impressive, and it doesn’t really have to be. Because it’s essentially a browser that loads the Windows 10 ISO download page, it features a minimal UI, with basic controls in a menu bar at the top. The rest of the interface is pretty much the site where you download the ISO images.
The menu options allow you to configure the language that you want to use for downloading the ISO images – this setting also refreshes the download page and displays it in the select language. It’s pretty much the same thing as replacing the region in the URL, and this is why the website refreshes on language change.
There are a few settings, such as a black mode and a classic font, but you can very well ignore these since the whole purpose is to download an ISO image from Microsoft’s servers.
The steps for downloading the ISO are provided by Microsoft’s website itself, so no further menus or screens are displayed beside what you see when you launch Windows ISO Download Tool.
As compared to Windows ISO Downloader, which is a similar solution for straightforward downloading of Windows 10 ISO images, this little app relies on the basics and come with no extra menus – this is no surprise actually given it’s mainly a browser that only points you to the official Microsoft ISO download page directly.
If there’s anything that’d come in handy, it’s a way to reach the download links faster – for example, just like Windows ISO Downloader does, this app needs shortcuts to download certain Windows 10 ISO versions quicker. The developer can add options to download certain versions, such as Home and Pro, 32-bit/64-bit in different languages right in the menu, which means the user would no longer be required to browse through all options on Microsoft’s website manually.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Windows 10 ISO Download isn’t necessarily an application that impresses with the feature lineup or its user interface, but it certainly gets the job done. As I said earlier, changing the user agent to a non-Windows browser has long been a painful trick that many turned to in order to download Windows 10 ISO images, so no longer having to do this might actually sound great for some.
This app comes with a freeware license and does what it says, albeit it can obviously do it better.
But at the end of the day, if you don’t want to spend too much time messing with your browser’s settings and just download a Windows 10 ISO, this is worth a chance.
