{"id":1230,"date":"2014-01-01T16:06:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T21:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swildow.darktech.org\/wp\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2014-01-01T16:06:09","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T21:06:09","slug":"how-to-download-windows-8-x-and-create-a-bootable-dvd-usb-legally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/?p=1230","title":{"rendered":"How to Download Windows 8.x and Create a Bootable DVD \/ USB (Legally)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/178487\/how-to-download-windows-8.x-and-create-a-bootable-dvd-usb-legally\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">How to Download Windows 8.x and Create a Bootable DVD \/ USB (Legally)<\/a><\/div>\n<p>45m<\/p><\/div>\n<div>by The Geek<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<!--more--><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/img_52bcfd38c21e4.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Over the years readers have written in asking how to download Windows and make a bootable install disk, and we\u2019ve always had to tell them that there isn\u2019t a great way to do that. Microsoft has finally fixed this problem in Windows 8.x, and here is how to do it.<\/p>\n<p>First you\u2019ll want to go to the following URL and download the web installer:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/windows.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows-8\/upgrade-product-key-only\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/windows.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows-8\/upgrade-product-key-only<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Once you launch the executable, it is going to ask you for a product key. You do have one of those, right? I mean, we\u2019re not helping anybody pirate a copy of Windows, after all.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/img_52bceb15f2fd1.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once you plug in the product key, it\u2019ll show you the version of Windows that your product key is good for. Proceed to the next step.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/img_52bceb767fa2f.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>You might notice that the background on our screenshots changed to blue. That\u2019s because the awful default background for Windows 8.1 was getting on our nerves, and we just couldn\u2019t take it anymore.<\/p>\n<p>The setup program will download your copy of Windows 8 or 8.1, depending on which one you chose.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/img_52bcf1d490a84.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now you\u2019ll be asked if you want to install now, later, or create media. That\u2019s the one we want to choose.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/img_52bcfd1a52825.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At this point you can either choose to put the installer directly onto a USB drive, which will make a bootable version. Or you can choose to create an ISO file, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/howto\/14183\/beginner-geek-how-to-burn-an-iso-image-to-a-disc\/\" target=\"_blank\">you can burn to a DVD<\/a>. We recommend the bootable USB version.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/img_52bcfd38c21e4.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now that you\u2019re all done, you might notice that there is a new folder called ESD in the root of your drive, and it is taking up 3 GB of space. You can remove this, but once you do, the installer will get weird and stop working.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/img_52bd01297678d.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So you can delete it if you want, but just know that the installer won\u2019t work, and won\u2019t re-download for some reason. We\u2019ll look into it, but it\u2019s not the most important thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to Download Windows 8.x and Create a Bootable DVD \/ USB (Legally) 45m by The Geek \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1231,"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}