Microsoft released Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) in February 2011. Now, Microsoft has made available Windows 7 ISO images integrated with SP1.

Earlier, we have provided official DigitalRiver direct download links of Windows 7. But, you had to download and run Service Pack 1 separately (or through Windows Updates) to update your Windows 7. If you want to slipstream SP1 into Windows 7 installation DVD, so that when you reinstall Windows 7, you don’t need to again download SP1 separately, you can now stop searching. You can now download Official Windows 7 SP1 integrated ISO images directly from Digital River Servers, who are the official partners of Microsoft for distributing Windows 7.

Downloading the files from Digital River is absolutely legal and free as Microsoft uses them as an official download channel. However, without obtaining a legally obtained product key, you will be able to run Windows 7 installation for 30 days. After 30 days, Windows 7 needs to be activated, or the evaluation grace period be reset. If you already own a key, you can activate the ISO you will download from Digital River.

You can very easily be convert the downloaded ISO image into universal Windows 7 editions installation media. FYI, the x86 is the 32-bit edition and the x64 is the 64-bit edition. All the links below are English (USA) language.

Download Windows 7 Integrated SP1 ISO Images

Windows 7 Home Premium x86 SP1 ISO

X17-24208.iso (bootable)

Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1 ISO

X17-24209.iso (bootable)

Windows 7 Professional x86 SP1 ISO

X17-24280.iso (bootable)

Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 ISO

X17-24281.iso (bootable)

Windows 7 Ultimate x86 SP1 ISO

X17-24394.iso (bootable)

Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 ISO

X17-24395.iso (bootable)

After you have downloaded the ISO, you can burn it to DVD using any DVD writing software that supports writing disc images or double-click on the image if you are running Windows 7 already. [via]

Microsoft has recently released Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 users. The Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 was first introduced last May as a series of 6 applications that are designed to showcase Windows Touch in Windows 7 and to help people learn touch gestures. It consists of 3 casual games, and 3 Microsoft Surface applications that are created for Windows 7.

Before the release of the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7, it was only available for OEMs to put on new Windows 7 PCs capable of Windows Touch. Now, Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 is released for everyone. Users with Windows Touch capable devices can download and install it.

The Microsoft Touch Pack includes:

Microsoft Surface Globe, a program that you can use to explore the earth as a flat 2-D map or as an immersive 3-D experience.

Microsoft Surface Collage, a program that you can use to explore and interact with your photos and arrange them as a desktop background.

Microsoft Surface Lagoon, a screen saver and interactive water simulation, complete with a meditative rock arrangement and playful, shy fish.

Microsoft Blackboard, an intricate game of physics in which you solve a puzzle by creating a fanciful machine on a blackboard.

Microsoft Rebound, a game in which you use your fingertips to control Tesla spheres with an electrical field between them to catapult a metal game ball into your opponent’s goal.

Microsoft Garden Pond, a tranquil game that takes place in serene Japanese water gardens.

Microsoft Touch Pack can be installed in the following Windows 7 editions:

• Windows 7 Home Premium
• Windows 7 Professional
• Windows 7 Ultimate

Both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions are supported by the Touch Pack.

System Requirements for Microsoft Touch Pack:

• A computer system or a monitor that supports Windows Touch (at least 2 touch input support required)
• 1.3 GHz or higher processor
• 1 GB RAM
• 600 MB available hard disk space
• 128 MB 3D video card with Hardware Textures & Lighting
• DirectX 9.0 or later capable video card

Download: Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7

Windows XP Mode is freely available for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise users. It allows you to run legacy applications inside a Windows XP virtual machine running in the background. Windows XP Mode was primarily designed to help businesses move from Windows XP to Windows 7. Almost all programs that are compatible with Windows Vista and a majority of Windows XP programs, run well in Windows 7. But, if a program doesn’t run properly even after trying the Program Compatibility troubleshooter, you can run the program in Windows XP Mode.

Windows XP Mode runs in a separate window on the Windows 7 desktop, much like a program, except it’s a fully functional version of Windows XP. When you install a program in Windows XP Mode, the program appears in both the Windows XP Mode list of programs and in the Windows 7 list of programs, so you can open the program directly from Windows 7. Do note that it isn’t optimized for graphic-intensive programs such as 3D games or for programs with hardware requirements such as TV tuners.

The most important hardware requirement for using XP mode is a computer with a processor that supports hardware-assisted virtualization such as AMD-V, Intel-VT or VIA VT.  Microsoft has a helpful tool that will detect if your hardware is compatible called the HAV Detection Tool. On some computers the feature may be turned off in the BIOS, click here for instructions on how to turn it on. The other requirements are as follows:

Setting up and Using Windows XP Mode

First, visit the Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC website, and click Get Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC now.

In the Windows 7 system type drop-down list, select 32-bit or 64-bit depending on what Windows 7 version that you are using currently running. Next, in the Windows XP Mode language drop-down list, select the language you want to use for Windows XP Mode.

To find out whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 7, click on the Start button, then right-click on Computer, and then click on Properties. The information about the version that you are using appears under System, next to the System type.

After selecting the options, download both Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC.

After installing the Windows Virtual PC component you will need to reboot your computer.

After the reboot, click on the Start Menu and navigate through All Programs, Windows Virtual PC and select Windows XP Mode to begin configuring XP Mode.

Accept the license terms and then click on Next.

Next, you will need to specify the password for the local account XPMuser that runs in the XP virtual machine. Type in a password in both boxes and click Next.

Windows XP Mode runs a fully functional Windows XP virtual machine in the background so it must be patched every month as new security updates are released to keep applications running in the VM protected.  The best way to do this is by turning on Automatic Updates.  Check Help protect my computer by turning on Automatic Updates now and click Next.

Now click on Start Setup. Setup will now run and configure the Windows XP virtual machine.  This will take a few minutes.

After the setup is completed, Windows XP virtual machine will be displayed. At this point install any applications in the XP Virtual Machine like you normally install applications.

After the program’s setup is completed, you will see the programs icons in the Windows 7 Start Menu under All Programs, Windows Virtual PC and finally Windows XP Mode applications.

Just click on one of the shortcuts and the application will load in just like a locally installed app.

If you ever want to service or install more application in the XP Virtual Machine just click on the Start Menu and navigate through All Programs, Windows Virtual PC and select Windows XP Mode. That will start the XP virtual machine in desktop mode.

The DVD and ISO image of Windows Vista contained all the editions, which was very convenient for any techie like me. But what about Windows 7 DVD or ISO images? Bad news is that Windows 7 is no longer “One Disc To Rule Them All” like Vista. This presents challenges to people who are downloading multiple editions from their MSDN or TechNet subscriptions, and for people who want to back up and archive their ISO, because instead of just two disc images – one each for 32-bit and 64-bit versions, there will be now eight different images.

Frustrated techies were looking for ways to deal with this annoyance, like the developer behind Windows 7 ISO Image Edition Switcher. The Windows 7 ISO Image Edition Switcher is a set of small binary patches (and a tool to apply these patches) that will convert an official Windows 7 ISO disc image into an official Windows 7 ISO disc image of another edition. The resulting ISO images are bit-for-bit same with those posted on MSDN or TechNet, and their SHA-1 hashes should match the official hashes posted by Microsoft.

Surely, you can easily do this by editing a file but using this free portable utility makes the job very easy and less troublesome. To use this utility, download it first and then extract it to a folder. Run “binpatcher.exe” and it will ask for the patch file, select the patch you need from the ones included in the zip. Now, select the ISO image file of Windows 7 and presto! Its done and the ISO image is ready for burning or installing your version of Windows 7.

Download Windows 7 ISO Image Edition Switcher

Update: Another great and very easy method is to remove only a single file present on the Windows 7 installation ISO. The file is ei.cfg present inside the sources folder. It restricts the choice of Windows editions that can be installed with that particular media. To remove the file, you can use the ei.cfg Removal Utility. This utility takes care of the hassle of removing the file and converts your Windows 7 installation media into a universal Windows 7 edition install media.

Customers who buy Windows 7 online via Digital River or other online stores, receives the delivery of Windows 7 installation file through Electronic Software Distribution (ESD). User who only wants to download Windows 7 installation files via official and verified source and not from torrent sites can choose to download the ESD files instead.

Normally, Windows 7 setup installer that is downloaded via ESD channel is meant for upgrade version license or product key, and hence no ISO for burning to DVD or USB flash drive is provided. The direct download links to the Windows 7 operating system distributed via ESD channel have been leaked. The installation files of Windows 7 is hosted on the server on domain msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net owned by Digital River.

Each editions of Windows 7 has its own different and separate download links, and the setup installer package comes in 3 parts, which is an executable that starts the extraction or unpacking and installation process, plus setup1.box and setup2.box. After extracting all content to a folder named ExpandedSetup, the installation files should be the same with what has on a DVD.

I will suggest you to copy the download links and use a download manager to download these large files. Speed will depend on the load of the server.

Windows 7 Direct Download Links

32-bit Windows 7 Professional x86

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79643/Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x86.exe
File Size: 69.78 MB
MD5: 204D02EA3AB587B70621A7EC99B3F1B8
SHA-1: 60BA243A05261AA7A3AF9A3ADF509E8069B6E891

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79643/setup1.box
File Size: 2.04 GB
MD5: D5CC1E45D6EB57B8500DBCF622F39637
SHA-1: EDAA9BA294EA7E49D4FE731E81CDD1E3C6168F51

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79643/setup2.box
File Size: 137.59 MB
MD5: FAB28838A97E875D27E4E7239F42131C
SHA-1: 78D8ED22DF4FCDA102B72D41420D9854DC0DF7B4

64-bit Windows 7 Professional x64

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79946/Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x64.exe
File Size: 75.9 MB
MD5: 73D13A1000069E372F7478CF1C426B7A
SHA-1: 6B7D87BF0BE0D3BAE4A5E4550260BDF6A5600534

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79946/setup1.box
File Size: 2.66 GB
MD5: 7B29E21B7F6BC0850E65085205B5EAFE
SHA-1: 47D4131ACD1DA3A96F19244FE4D840EB18C2057C

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79946/setup2.box
File Size: 160 MB
MD5: 87DCC913A7BBBFCFA2C2526C2E894F97
SHA-1: 4076CA5224D6D2E7338AB286BF31912D8404E016

After downloading the files, simply double-click on the executable, e.g. Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x86.exe to start unloading the box and to install Windows 7.

Note: The 3 files must be put together in the same directory. You will still need a product key to activate installed Windows 7.

Updated Working Windows 7 Direct Download Links

Windows 7 Home Premium Direct Download Links (English, German, French, Spanish)

• Windows 7 Home Premium English 32-bit
• Windows 7 Home Premium English 64-bit
• Windows 7 Home Premium German 32-bit
• Windows 7 Home Premium German 64-bit
• Windows 7 Home Premium French 32-bit
• Windows 7 Home Premium French 64-bit
• Windows 7 Home Premium Spanish 32-bit
• Windows 7 Home Premium Spanish 64-bit

Windows 7 Professional Direct Download Links (English, German, French, Spanish)

• Windows 7 Professional English 32-bit
• Windows 7 Professional English 64-bit
• Windows 7 Professional German 32-bit
• Windows 7 Professional German 64-bit
• Windows 7 Professional French 32-bit
• Windows 7 Professional French 64-bit
• Windows 7 Professional Spanish 32-bit
• Windows 7 Professional Spanish 64-bit

Note: All the ISO images of Windows 7 DVDs contain all editions of the operating system. So, a 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium edition ISO image has all 32-bit editions of Windows 7, and the 64-bit ISO has all the 64-bit editions. The easiest way to switch Windows 7 edition is to use a little portable application called Windows 7 ISO Edition Switcher. It can easily switch the ISO image downloaded to another edition of Windows 7. For example, you can turn a Home Premium edition into Ultimate, or Windows 7 Starter, or Windows 7 Professional. But, do remember that it is still necessary to have a valid product key to activate Windows 7.

Microsoft in an official announcement has released pricing information for the Windows 7 Family Pack and Windows Anytime Upgrade. For homes with multiple PCs, Microsoft is providing an affordable solution with their Windows 7 Family Pack. This special edition of Windows 7 is basically consisting of Windows 7 Home Premium which will be licensed for installation on up to 3 PCs. It is really useful if you want to run Windows 7 on more than one PC on a home network, and share files, music and photos with your family easily.

The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available starting on October 22nd until supplies last here in the US and other select markets. In the US, the price for the Windows 7 Family Pack will be $149.99 for 3 Windows 7 Home Premium licenses. Its a great value pack as you can save more than $200 for three licenses.

With Windows Anytime Upgrade (or WAU), it is very easy to upgrade anytime to a higher edition of Windows 7. WAU allows customers on Starter, Home Premium, or Professional to upgrade to a higher version of Windows 7 without paying the full price. For a step by step procedure for WAU click here.

[News Source: The Windows Team Blog, Windows 7 News ]