Trevin Chow

One of the big benefits of buying ESD aside from the environmental one, is that it increases the convenience of buying software online.  Not only can you typically get it faster than waiting for a physical shipment in the mail, but you also get the benefit of being able to re-download it in case you need to reinstall in the future.  Additionally, we also store your product key in the cloud so you don’t have to keep silly post it notes or DVD jewel cases around.

One drawback, however, is when you need to install Windows from bootable media such as a DVD.  With Windows Vista, Microsoft Store only gave you an option to download the Windows setup files, and to install windows, you would run setup.exe to kickoff the Windows setup.

This happens when you have a PC without an existing version of Windows installed, or even a Mac where you are trying to install Windows with boot camp.

In these cases, it’s hardly convenient to have an ESD version of Windows since you have no way of starting setup without a lot of manual steps.

Windows 7 ISO files

After purchasing your downloadable Windows 7 edition on Microsoft Store, you now have the option of several types of downloads.  By default, we offer the 32-bit version of the edition you purchased that can be downloaded and Windows setup can be kicked off right away.  This is the version that most of our customers be downloading.

However, in addition to this, we also now offer a set of “Advanced” download options that gives you choice of 64-bit installer and both 32-bit and 64-bit ISO files!

Offering ISO files in addition to our regular “installer” versions, helps customers that need both the convenience of a download but also need physical media to boot from.

The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Our team is committed to creating the best experience for downloading software from Microsoft.  We previously created the Microsoft Store Download Manager to help with the download process.

To burn an ISO to DVD you can use any of the many free or commercial applications that are available.   However, majority of these programs don’t provide easy ways to create bootable USB Keys in addition to DVDs.

We created the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (WUDT) to help customers that have more advanced needs for their Windows 7 installation and need an easy way to create bootable media.  The WUDT will take the ISO files from Microsoft Store and easily create either a bootable DVD or a USB Key with only a few clicks.

This is a free tool and available for immediate download.

Here is the WUDT step-by-step for creating a bootable USB Key:

After the process is completed, you can take the USB key and plug it into your target installation PC and choose to boot from the USB Key which will automatically start the Windows 7 installer.  If you chose to create a bootable DVD instead, the process is nearly identical except that you’ll boot from the DVD.

For answers to frequently asked questions, please see our FAQ.

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