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How To Find Windows Version And Build From The ISO File

Windows 10 is available in several different channels; Production, Release, Insider Slow Ring, Insider Fast Ring, and Insider Skip Ahead. Not all channels receive all builds. The Production channel, for example, will only get the most stable, polished version of a Windows build. You can download a Windows 10 ISO directly from Microsoft. If you already have an ISO build, you might want to find the Windows version and build that it will install. Here’s how you can check both from the ISO file without installing it.

This works on any and all Windows ISO files. If you have an ISO file for Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 this same trick will work. If you’ve already burned the ISO file to a USB drive, you can still use this method to find the Windows version and build without actually installing the OS.

Windows Version And Build From The ISO File

If you have an ISO file, right-click it and select Mount from the context menu. If you’ve already burned the ISO file to a USB (and deleted it), connect the USB drive to your system.

Once you’ve connected the USB drive, or mounted the ISO file, open it and look for a file named setup.exe. Right-click it and select Properties from the context menu. Go to the Details tab  where the Windows version and build will be listed. If you’re not sure which Windows it will install, i.e., Windows 10 or 7, you will be able to tell from this same tab which Windows ISO you have.

If the ISO file hasn’t been corrupted or tampered with, the information you see on the Details tab will be accurate. If you’re not sure about the authenticity of the ISO file, you might not want to use it to install an OS on your computer. Use this trick only if you have a reliable ISO that you downloaded yourself and the information will be accurate.

This trick may or may not work on ISO files for other operating systems. macOS isn’t shipped as an ISO file but Linux distributions are. We tested this out on a fairly dated ISO for Ubuntu but the EXE didn’t have information on which version of Ubuntu it would install, and what build it was.

If you have installation media for a different operating system, it will likely have its own built-in mechanism for checking the version or build number. Some ISO files have the version and build number in the file name so that’s a good place to check as well.

1 Comment

  1. TheMegaPirate77 about half of what you said was correct but that means the other half is wrong,haha ofc hacking is illegal but opening up ISO’s is only illegal if you pirate them, what most people would do and this is legal is if they have the game disc they would take the ISO’s and do this so they wont have to put in the disc to play on the other hand the illegal part is if you go to a site and download the isos and do this that is pirating same thing as downloading mp3s and puting on ipod.