Microsoft site won't let me download English version of Win7 Ultimate

[Ichinisan]

My brother got a Windows 7 Ultimate product key when he attended a Microsoft event many years ago. We gave the product key to our nephew (who lives out of state) so he could upgrade from Vista Ultimate (which we had also gotten from a previous Microsoft event).

Our nephew is visiting from out-of-state again this week so that we can rebuild his system. New board, CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage. I used Magical Jellybean KeyFinder to recover the product key (he didn't bring the original disc+key with him and isn't sure if he still has it after he moved). KeyFinder says it's a "Full Retail" version. If I recall correctly, back when we originally installed it, we had to make our own install disc anyway to get the 64-bit version.

Microsoft's download site validates the key and displays a language selection where English does not appear in the list. There's no way to get an ISO download without selecting one of the foreign languages!

Argh!

 

[country2]

http://www.pcsteps.com/45-download-windows-7-iso-legally-free/


All on the German mirror http://mirror.corenoc.de/

 

[Ham n' Eggs]

How about trying to install with alternate language and then when it is finished installing running windows update. At some point windows Ultimate will offer the download of different language packs.
Is there an option to NOT select a language? Maybe the default language is English?

Anyway, I think my 1st idea might work but it would be a sort of pain to try it out and have it fail.

As to the other option:
Call me paranoid but I would never download a windows ISO from a non-microsoft site.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The Windows 7 product keys are all agnostic of language version and bit edition. Any valid Windows 7 product key determines only the edition (Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise). It can, however, activate both 32 and 64 bit editions in any language. So, for instance, a key for the German Windows 7 Professional x86 edition can activate a Chinese Windows 7 Professional x64 edition. So if you already own a key, you can download any 32 or 64 bit image in your preferred language.

Not sure, why you are having problems.

In any case, the Ultimate edition comes with ~36 languages, so you can change them on the fly (after downloading an appropriate language pack) and rebooting.

 

[CZroe]

How about trying to install with alternate language and then when it is finished installing running windows update. At some point windows Ultimate will offer the download of different language packs.
Is there an option to NOT select a language? Maybe the default language is English?

Anyway, I think my 1st idea might work but it would be a sort of pain to try it out and have it fail.

As to the other option:
Call me paranoid but I would never download a windows ISO from a non-microsoft site.

Well, if the MD5 matches the Microsoft downloads then they should be safe. Not sure if the original MD5s were publicized.

 

[Ham n' Eggs]

Well, if the MD5 matches the Microsoft downloads then they should be safe.

good point

 

[tcsenter]

If you have the Google-Fu Mojo, you can download the MS-released (DVD) ISO for ANY of the x64 consumer editions: Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate. They are all the same size because they are identical other than one statement in the ei.cfg file, which pre-selects a particular edition during SETUP.

The file size for ANY of these editions (64-bit with SP1 included) is 3,320,903,680 bytes (which might help your search). The ISO file names are:

Home Premium - X17-58997.iso
Professional - X17-59186.iso
Ultimate - X17-59465.iso

Once you get one, create bootable USB Flash drive from the ISO using a utility such as Rufus (or other). After creating the flash drive, find the file named ei.cfg on the flash drive and simply delete it. During installation, it will prompt you to select the edition you want to install (for which you have a product key) rather than selecting it for you (based on that ei.cfg which no longer exists).