Create Windows 10 ISO from Windows 10 Upgrade ESD File

Microsoft has announced completely free upgrade to the new Windows 10 operating system for all the Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 users. The upgrade shall commence after the official release of Windows 10 sometime in the last week of July 2015. The free upgrade involves the downloading of the compressed Windows 10 files from the Microsoft servers and then upgrading your existing operating system to Windows 10. But this leaves you without any Windows 10 DVD or ISO file. Fortunately, you can use the downloaded upgrade files to create an ISO image for Windows 10 and if you have a DVD burner, then you can even create a Windows 10 DVD for yourself (of course, you would need a blank DVD disk).

Here is how you can create a Windows 10 ISO image after Windows 10 upgrade is complete:

  1. First of all check for the existence of the install.esd file on your hard disk. This file can be found in the C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources folder (after downloading Windows 10 upgrade but before upgrading to Windows 10). But it can also be found in the C:\RecoveryImage folder after Windows 10 upgrade has completed.Windows 10 ESD to ISO
  2. Download the ESD to ISO converter tool from https://www.dropbox.com/.
  3. Extract the contents of the downloaded file (using 7-Zip) to a folder.
  4. Right-click on decrypt.cmd and choose Run as administrator.Windows 10 ESD to ISO
  5. In the command line window that opens up, type the full path of the install.esd file and press Enter. Alternatively, you can copy the install.esd file in the same folder as decrypt.cmd and follow from step 4 above.Windows 10 ESD to ISO
  6. Upon successful analyzing of the install.esd, you will be shown four options. Choose the option that reads – Create Full ISO with standard install.wim.Windows 10 ESD to ISO
  7. The process may take a long time to extract files from the install.esd file and convert it into an ISO image. In the end, an ISO image shall be created in the same folder as the decrypt.cmd script.Windows 10 ESD to ISO
  8. You can burn this ISO image to a blank DVD disk using a tool like ImgBurn.