Software is usually an expensive product because it is hard to learn how to program, developing a bug-free program requires a lot of time and effort and usually you get to earn money by using a piece of software. This is especially true for professional software programs and operating systems and it is really painful to discover you’ve lost/broken/scratched your software program CD or you’ve simply lost the program key that unlocks the software you need.
Microsoft has you covered now – given you run Windows 7. Users of the world’s most popular OS can now download it completely free of charge from Microsoft’s web site. Now if you tend to use illegal software you should not be too happy – there are some requirements that make sure people who use Windows illegally will not be able to get a legal version for free. Here’s what you need to do to download a genuine version of Windows 7 – you must have your original Windows 7 product key and then select the product language that you prefer. And finally you must have enough free space on your hard drive and a stable connection to the Internet.
Unfortunately according to Hot Hardware the download page does not work properly. There are likely some bugs to fix but when the dust settles everything should work okay. By the way, if you happen not to know what your Windows 7 CD key is, you can use a free software tool off the Internet that will show this information to you.
Source: Hot Hardware