How to download Windows 11

Windows 11 Minimum system requirements

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with at least two cores on a compatible 64-bit processor or SoC
• RAM: 4GB
• Storage: 64GB
• System Firmware: UEFI, Secure Boot capable
• TPM: Trusted Platform Module 2.0
• Graphics Card: DirectX 12 or later with WDDM 2.0 driver
• Display: 720p, 8-bit per color channel, at least 9-inch diagonal
• Internet Connection and Microsoft Account: Windows 11 Home requires an active internet connection and a Microsoft Account to complete initial, first-use setup of the operating system, or when switching a device out of Windows 11 Home in S-mode.

How to download Windows 11 from the official Microsoft website

If you need to download the original Windows 11 x64, the most reasonable and fastest way to do this is to use the official Microsoft website.

1. Go to the official “Download Windows 11” page – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
2. In the “Download a Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO)” section, select “Windows 11” in the selection field and click the “Download” button.
3. In the “Select the language of the product” section, specify the required language, for example, “English” and click the “Confirm” button.
4. Click on the “64-bit Download” button to start downloading.

The ISO image will be downloaded to the folder you specified or the Downloads folder. As you can see, everything is as simple as possible with the new version – you don’t need to look for any sophisticated methods, but they exist.

Please note: the downloaded image contains both home (Home) and professional (Pro) editions of the system, the choice will appear during installation. If, after starting the installation, you immediately install Windows 11 Home without choosing a version, this indicates that this particular edition of the system was previously installed on the device and the key is stored in UEFI, “picking up” automatically.

Loading an ISO image in the Media Creation Tool

As before, the official Installation Media Creation Tool is available for Windows 11, designed primarily to create bootable installation drives. But, if necessary, we can use it to get the original ISO image:

1. On the official website https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 , in the “Creating Windows 11 installation media” section, click “Download”, download the Media Creation Tool (MediaCreationToolW11.exe) and run it.
2. Accept the terms of the license agreement (provided that you agree with them).
3. On the next screen, by unchecking “Use the recommended settings for this computer”, you can select the system language. In the release field, in any case, it will indicate “Windows 11”. A 64-bit image containing various editions (Pro, Home) will be downloaded. Click next.
4. You will be prompted to immediately create a bootable installation USB flash drive (USB flash drive) or ISO file. In the context of this instruction, we choose the second option.
5. Click “Next” and specify the location to save the ISO image, after which it remains to wait for the files to download and create the ISO image with Windows 11.

This method differs from the direct download of Windows 11 from the Microsoft website, described in the first section: it is not a whole ISO file that is downloaded, but a set of necessary files, from which an image is then formed on your computer.

Getting Windows 11 in Rufus

Known to most users, the free program Rufus, designed to create bootable flash drives, can, among other things, download images. In this case, the download is performed from official sites. It can also be used to get a Windows 11 image:

1. Download Rufus from the official website https://rufus.ie/en/ (you can choose the Portable version that does not require installation on your computer).
2. When you first start the prompt to check for updates, answer “Yes”, this action is required to be able to perform the following steps.
3. In the main window of the program, click on the arrow to the right of the “Select” button and select “Download” or select Windows ISO image archive you previously downloaded from Microsoft site.
4. Click the Download button, then select Windows 11 and click Continue.
5. Select the version of Windows 11 to download. As a rule, the final release is available by default. Click the “Continue” button.
6. Specify the edition (it will say Home/Pro, both versions in the same ISO image).
7. Specify the system language and click Continue.
8. In the “Architecture” field, x64 will already be indicated, leave it.
9. Click the “Download” button to start downloading. If you check “Download using a browser”, a browser will be launched with an open direct link to the Windows 11 ISO file (and you can make sure that the download is made from the official site).