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A PowerShell script to download Windows or UEFI Shell ISOs
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pbatard/Fido
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Fido is a PowerShell script that is primarily designed to be used inRufus, but thatcan also be used in standalone fashion, and whose purpose is to automate access to the official Microsoft Windows retailISO download links as well as provide convenient access tobootable UEFI Shell images.
This script exists because, while Microsoft does make retail ISO download links freely and publicly available (at leastfor Windows 8 through Windows 11), up until recent releases, most of these links were only available after forcing usersto jump through a lot of unwarranted hoops that created an exceedingly counterproductive, if not downright unfriendly,consumer experience, that greatly detracted from what people really want (direct access to ISO downloads).
As to the reason one might want to download Windowsretail ISOs, as opposed to the ISOs that are generated byMicrosoft's own Media Creation Tool (MCT), this is because using official retail ISOs is currently the only way toassert with absolute certainty that the OS content has not been altered. Indeed, because there only exists a singlemaster for each of them, Microsoft retail ISOs are the only ones you can obtain an official SHA-1 for (from MSDN, if youhave access to it, or from sitessuch as this one) allowing you to be 100%sure that the image you are using has not been corrupted and is safe to use.
This, in turn, offers assurance that the contentYOU are using to install your OS, which it is indeed critical tovalidate beforehand if you have the slightest concern about security, does match, bit for bit, the one that Microsoftreleased.
On the other hand, regardless of the manner in which Microsoft's Media Creation Tool produces its content, because notwo MCT ISOs are ever the same (due to MCT always regenerating the ISO content on the fly) it is currently impossible tovalidate with absolute certainty whether any ISO that was generated by the MCT is safe to use. Especially, unlike whatis the case for retail ISOs, it is impossible to tell whether an MCT ISO may have been corrupted after generation.
Hence the need to provide users with a much easier and less restrictive way to access official retail ISOs...
GNU General Public License version 3.0 or later.
The script basically performs the same operation as one might perform when visiting the following URL (that is, in thecase of Windows 10, provided that you have also changed yourUser-Agent
browser string, since, the Microsoft webservers detect that you are using a version of Windows that is the same as the one you are trying to download, theymay redirect youaway from the page that allows you to obtain a direct ISO download link):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download
After checking basic access to the Microsoft software downloads website the script first queries the web API from theMicrosoft servers, to request the language selection available for the version of Windows selected, and then requeststhe actual download links, for all the architectures available for that language + version.
Windows 8 or later with PowerShell. Windows 7 isnot supported.
Fido supports commandline mode whereas, whenever one of the following options is provided, a GUI is not instantiatedand you can instead generate the ISO download from within a PowerShell console or script.
Note however that, as of 2023.05, Microsoft has removed access to older releases of Windows ISOs and as a result, thelist of releases that can be downloaded from Fido has had to be reduced to only the latest for each version.
The options are:
Win
: Specify Windows version (e.g."Windows 10"). Abbreviated version should work as well (e.g-Win 10
) as longas it is unique enough. If this option isn't specified, the most recent version of Windows is automatically selected.You can obtain a list of supported versions by specifying-Win List
.Rel
: Specify Windows release (e.g."21H1"). If this option isn't specified, the most recent release for the chosenversion of Windows is automatically selected. You can also use-Rel Latest
to force the most recent to be used.You can obtain a list of supported versions by specifying-Rel List
.Ed
: Specify Windows edition (e.g."Pro/Home"). Abbreviated editions should work as well (e.g-Ed Pro
) as longas it is unique enough. If this option isn't specified, the most recent version of Windows is automatically selected.You can obtain a list of supported versions by specifying-Ed List
.Lang
: Specify Windows language (e.g."Arabic"). Abbreviated or part of a language (e.g.-Lang Int
forEnglish International
) should work as long as it's unique enough. If this option isn't specified, the script attemptsto select the same language as the system locale.You can obtain a list of supported languages by specifying-Lang List
.Arch
: Specify Windows architecture (e.g."x64"). If this option isn't specified, the script attempts to use the samearchitecture as the one from the current system.GetUrl
: By default, the script attempts to automatically launch the download. But when using the-GetUrl
switch,the script only displays the download URL, which can then be piped into another command or into a file.
Examples of a commandline download:
PS C:\Projects\Fido> .\Fido.ps1 -Win 10No release specified (-Rel). Defaulting to '21H1 (Build 19043.985 - 2021.05)'.No edition specified (-Ed). Defaulting to 'Windows 10 Home/Pro'.No language specified (-Lang). Defaulting to 'English International'.No architecture specified (-Arch). Defaulting to 'x64'.Selected: Windows 10 21H1 (Build 19043.985 - 2021.05), Home/Pro, English International, x64Downloading 'Win10_21H1_EnglishInternational_x64.iso' (5.0 GB)...PS C:\Projects\Fido> .\Fido.ps1 -Win 10 -Rel ListPlease select a Windows Release (-Rel) for Windows 10 (or use 'Latest' for most recent): - 21H1 (Build 19043.985 - 2021.05) - 20H2 (Build 19042.631 - 2020.12) - 20H2 (Build 19042.508 - 2020.10) - 20H1 (Build 19041.264 - 2020.05) - 19H2 (Build 18363.418 - 2019.11) - 19H1 (Build 18362.356 - 2019.09) - 19H1 (Build 18362.30 - 2019.05) - 1809 R2 (Build 17763.107 - 2018.10) - 1809 R1 (Build 17763.1 - 2018.09) - 1803 (Build 17134.1 - 2018.04) - 1709 (Build 16299.15 - 2017.09) - 1703 [Redstone 2] (Build 15063.0 - 2017.03) - 1607 [Redstone 1] (Build 14393.0 - 2016.07) - 1511 R3 [Threshold 2] (Build 10586.164 - 2016.04) - 1511 R2 [Threshold 2] (Build 10586.104 - 2016.02) - 1511 R1 [Threshold 2] (Build 10586.0 - 2015.11) - 1507 [Threshold 1] (Build 10240.16384 - 2015.07)PS C:\Projects\Fido> .\Fido.ps1 -Win 10 -Rel 20H2 -Ed Edu -Lang Fre -Arch x86 -GetUrlhttps://software-download.microsoft.com/db/Win10_Edu_20H2_v2_French_x32.iso?t=c48b32d3-4cf3-46f3-a8ad-6dd9568ff4eb&e=1629113408&h=659cdd60399584c5dc1d267957924fbd
Because of its intended usage with Rufus, this script is not designed to cover every possible retail ISO downloads.Instead we mostly chose the ones that the general public is likely to request. For instance, we currently have no planto add support for LTSB/LTSC Windows ISOs downloads.
If you are interested in such downloads, then you are kindly invited to visit the relevant download pages from Microsoftsuch asthis one for LTSC versions.
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A PowerShell script to download Windows or UEFI Shell ISOs