I’d like to try out Windows 10 on my PC within a virtual machine. Is there a way I can download and test Win10 without buying a license?
You’re in luck, actually. There is indeed an easy way that you can freely download and run a copy of Windows 10 on your computer, whether you want to dual boot, keep it in a virtual machine or even have it as the main operating system. Without a license, there are some limitations in what you’ll be able to access, but for general purposes, the free download works just fine for testing and experimentation purposes.
It’s all part of the developer program from Microsoft and it’s entirely legit: They encourage people to download and install either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 10 and make it easy to work with virtual machines because the default download format is an ISO DVD image. I’ll demonstrate by downloading and installing a clean copy of Win10 in VMWare Fusion, a terrific virtual machine environment for use within the MacOS X world.
To start, hop over to microsoft.com/en-us/software-downoad/windows10ISO (you can type it in or you can click my link if you’re more trusting 🙂 Once you get there the pop-up shows up to get you started:
When I tried it, there weren’t a lot of choices. In fact, there was one. Windows 10. So that’s what I chose. Then a second option shows up:
That’s really all the work required. Now it gives you two download options, 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 10:
Unless there’s a reason not to do so, I always recommend you get the 64-bit version for compatibility and performance. And that’s literally all you need to do. Next step is to wait for the download…
At 4.4GB for the 64-bit ISO, it’s not a blindingly fast download for most people. If you don’t have good Internet connectivity, I encourage you to head somewhere that does, the public library, your workplace, Starbucks, etc. It’ll make things much more pleasant!
Once it’s downloaded you have an ISO file ready to go:
You can see that I ended up with Win10_1709_English_x64.iso, meaning that it’s version 1709 of Windows 10. Just what I’d hope. You can double click to mount the virtual disk and then open it if you want:
But with a program like VMWare Fusion, you can work directly with the ISO file itself. Just launch VMWare Fusion, choose File > New Machine and you can select the file directly:
That’s it. From there the process is remarkably easy and you’ve got Windows 10 ready to run, test, explore, whatever you want. All without paying for a license.
If you are going to use it over time, however, I do recommend you get a license for use. It’s the right thing to do.
Updated link, not sure what happened. Try this one:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO
The windows download link does not work.
It appears your link for the windows10 iso file doesn’t exist.
would you have the correct one?
thank you,
-bill