During summer 2015, Microsoft started heavily back-adding telemetry to Windows 7 via various updates. In this post is a link for a fully-updated June 2015 ISO of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 that pre-dates that telemetry back-adding by Microsoft, as well as resources for creating your own custom Windows 7 installer ISO that only has the updates that you wish to have. At the bottom of this post is an archive containing all security-only updates released from October 2016 - October 2017.
To install Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit using the provided June 2015-updated ISO, you'll have to have your own license key to use during the installation process. A license for Windows 7 Ultimate can be bought from eBay or reddit and other places for very cheap, less than $10 or even less than $5.
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Fully updated as of June 2015 Windows 7 Ultimate 64 ISO download link
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 (updated to June 2015): -redacted-
Description
Here is a clean ISO image of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, which is fully-updated with SP1 and all other Windows 7 updates, up to June 2015. No Windows 7 key, license, or pre-activation is provided with this download. This ISO requires that a person has their own license for Windows 7 Ultimate, and that they enter it during the installation process, as is normally done.
This ISO image is a normal Windows 7 Ultimate installer, with nothing missing or added, other than all the official updates from Microsoft since October 2009, up until June 2015, including Service Pack 1.
What for
Microsoft back-added their telemetry and data-collection to Windows 7 in August of 2015, so this is Windows 7 Ultimate, as it was right before Microsoft made any undesirable and invasive changes to its feature-set.
This ISO allows a person with a valid Windows 7 Ultimate license to reinstall their Windows 7 Ultimate with all updates up to before Microsoft underwent a paradigm shift and started turning Windows against its users, to use people's installations of Windows 7 for invasive, non-authorized, and likely criminal purposes. If someone wants a Windows 7 installation ISO that is updated to after Microsoft added telemetry and data-collection, one is available for download directly from Microsoft.
With this ISO and their genuine Windows 7 Ultimate license key, a person can install Windows 7, and then simply turn off all automatic updates, or all updates completely, in order to never have Microsoft's unwanted updates applied to their Windows 7 OS and PC, yet while still having a fully-functional, stable, and modern Windows 7.
Note - 2 Windows updates to uninstall
It has been pointed out that this ISO contains updates related to Microsoft's "free upgrade to Windows 10" offer, which Microsoft pushed through Windows Update in April 2015, and so exist in this June 2015 ISO of Windows 7. They will have to be manually removed from the OS after it finishes installing.
Those two updates are KB3035583 and KB3150513 [2], and they can be uninstalled by doing the following:
- Select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & security > Windows Update > Advanced options > View your update history > Uninstall updates.
- Select the update you want to remove (KB3035583 and KB3150513), then select Uninstall.
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Creating a Custom Windows 7 Home, Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise ISO
If you want to create your own custom updated Windows 7 ISO for Windows 7 Home, Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise, see this link for a guide:
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/create-an-integrated-up-to-date-windows-7-install-disc/
A 2011-updated Windows ISO of either Home, Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise, to be used for the above-described process, can be obtained from here: http://mirror.corenoc.de/digitalrivercontent.net/ (alternate link here)
The ISOs available for download from that page are the official Microsoft Windows 7 ISOs that used to be hosted for public download on Digital River.
If you wish to create your own updated Windows 7 ISO, you can also use these quick-access links to download torrent files for untouched official Windows 7 ISOs from Microsoft. These torrent files are the same as the ones for their same versions provided in the above link:
Windows 7 Home Premium x64 with SP1, 620851: -redacted-
Windows 7 Pro x64 with SP1, 621750: -redacted-
Windows 7 Pro x64 without SP1, 65805: -redacted-
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with SP1, 677332: -redacted-
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Extra precaution with Aegis and Spybot Anti-Beacon
After installing Windows 7 with this ISO, a person can then run the separately-provided Aegis script, which will block much of Microsoft's Windows 7 telemetry updates from being searched for, and from being found by Windows Update. With the Aegis script blocking all known telemetry updates, a person can then safely continue to receive all other updates for Windows 7.
Aegis script to block various Windows 7 telemetry updates from being found by Windows Update, and from being downloaded and installed: https://mega.nz/#!dhExAbBa!fehYhbTNz5dIBh72psfXLfwv9wMk0uhMpGli-c0pBn4
The Aegis script was last updated March 18, 2016. A list of telemetry-containing updates released beyond Aegis' last updated date is here: https://pastebin.com/jWX2zHdr
Alternatively, or to be used in conjunction with other methods, a person can also check out Spybot's Anti-Beacon program, which aims to prevent Windows 7 telemetry.
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Windows 7 x64 Security Updates from October 2016 - October 2017
This download is an archive of 12 monthly security-only updates for x64 editions of Windows 7 Home, Professional, and Ultimate, spanning the period of October 2016 - October 2017: https://mega.nz/#!Jgd1zAxT!-uk7-glIG98r3oE24iaQ-mi0qIIBgMZS55oH5VgjdYY
Included in this archive of 12 monthly security-only updates for Windows 7 is the update to address the WannaCry ransomware threat. "(WannaCry)" has been added to that updates label to make it easy to identify, if that's all that a person wants to install.
The WannaCry security update for Windows 7 can also be downloaded directly from Microsoft's website at this address: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4012212
Caution: Some of these security updates likely contain telemetry in them. If wanting to vet what potential security issues each update is addressing, and whether it is worth risking adding some telemetry to the system, do an internet search for the individual KB identifiers for each update. For example, the WannaCry security update is labelled KB4012212.
Also included in this archive is another folder, which is called "select 2016 quality updates". And in that folder are a couple of possibly non-intrusive non-security updates. However, I didn't include them in this package for any specific reason other than that I didn't take them out of the folder before archiving and uploading it, and if wanting to not have any telemetry installed at all, I suggest not installing the updates that are in that folder.
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