How to Download Windows 10 On a PC

Technically, downloading Windows 10 means either obtaining its ISO file, or preparing an installation USB drive to install the operating system on your or any other computer. To get either of the jobs done, you need a program called Media Creation Tool that can be downloaded from Microsoft’s official website.

Note: Although downloading Windows 10 doesn’t cost you at all, you still need to buy a valid license key to activate Windows after installation.

Here’s how you can download Windows 10 on your PC using Media Creation Tool:

■Get to the Media Creation Tool download page
Launch your favorite web browser (Microsoft Edge for this example), search DOWNLOAD WINDOWS 10, and click the first link that appears in the search results. This takes you to the Microsoft’s official Media Creation Tool download page. The page also allows you to update your current Windows to its latest version (Windows 10 1803 at the time of this writing) directly.






■Run Media Creation Tool
Scroll down to the Create Windows 10 installation media section, click Download tool now, click Run, and click Yes on the User Account Control box. This temporarily downloads the Media Creation Tool on your computer and automatically executes it, taking you to the license agreement window. You can also click Save after clicking the Download tool now button to save Media Creation Tool to your preferred location on your local hard drive, and use it later or on a different computer.












■Tell the tool to get installation media
Click Accept, select the Create installation media on the next window, and click Next. This tells Media Creation Tool that you agree to the license terms, and want to create a Windows 10 installation media. Alternatively, you can leave the Upgrade this PC now radio button selected and click Next to upgrade current Windows to the latest Windows 10 version.









■Select an architecture
Review the Windows 10 architecture suggested by the tool or use the drop-down lists to pick the one you prefer, and click Next. This tells Media Creation Tool which variant of Windows 10 you want to create an installation media for. Since the architecture suggested by Media Creation Tool is based on your computer’s configuration, you may want to choose a different variant to install Windows 10 on a computer with different architecture.









■Select installation media type
Either leave the USB flash drive radio button selected or select ISO file (selected here), and click Next. This tells Media Creation Tool the type of installation media you want to have. Where selecting the USB flash drive radio button lets you create a Windows 10 installation USB drive, choosing ISO file downloads the Windows.iso file on your computer that you can burn on to an optical media (DVD), and/or create multiple installation USB drives from it.






■Choose a download location (for ISO file)
Choose a location on the Select a path box (Desktop for this example), and click Save. This begins the download process, and the ISO file is saved to the location you selected. Since the file is nearly 3.5 GB in size, depending on your Internet connection speed, it may take a while to download.






■Finalization

Click Finish after the download is complete. This removes any temporary files that Media Creation Tool has created during the process, and closes the wizard. After completion, as mentioned earlier, you can either burn the ISO file to an optical media, or create an installation USB drive from it.