Jan Krohn

Yes indeed. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2019 Sadly such cheap keys are useless for unlocking downloads (and probably not legitimate keys anyway). As are MSDN, Imagine, BizSpark and similar keys.

No need to close the thread. It is generally a good idea to use a download manager for a download of this size. The browser-integrated download routines can be quite unreliable. My personal recommendation: https://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

I was planning to include Server 2019 in version 8.00, but unfortunately failed to find out which license I need that can unlock the downloads. I'm willing to pay $1,000 or more for a suitable license. To find out the correct license, I could use some community help. If you guys have access to a Win Server 2019 Standard key (such as at work), could you please try to paste them into the download page over at MS, and post here whether it unlocks anything or not, as well as the exact identification of the license (such as Open-NL, OEM, ROK etc.)? The download page is here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7 (It can handle other keys than Win 7, including, if I interpret my findings correctly, Server 2019 Standard). Thanks for sharing any possible insights, so that we can have version 8.1 of the downloader soon, including Server 2019.

Version 8.00 (25 January 2019): Renamed assembly to avoid spaces in file name; new versioning scheme (major.minor.build.revision); added Windows 10 S (DELL); added more DELL models and images; added Visio 2010 Premium; added Insider and developer versions up to build 18317; added Office 2019 Business Pro for Mac; added Office 2019 for Mac build 16.21; added product pictures to DELL downloads; tidied side navigation; updated Bootstrap to version 4.2.1; improved error handling; updated localization for Italian and Latvian; Font Awesome attribution.

Very interested! This is awesome. Please send me the key and your PayPal ID by PM.

Thanks for sharing the link. I didn't provide the text for this page. Sorry the information is incorrect.

No, I never mentioned that. Where did you copy this text from?

Have a look on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xoffice+2016+professional+key.TRS0&_nkw=office+2016+professional+key&_sacat=0

That's very considerate, thanks! The situation is not really terrible, though it could and should be better. But there's no immediate danger of a shutdown. There's even enough money for a server upgrade and for Windows Server licenses. The downloads come directly from Microsoft, so they don't drain my server anyway. Downloading from torrent would make the downloader illegal in many locations. That's not really an option. The concrete issues are: * The monthly gap caused by the Amazon ban is still at about $1,000, which would be required for operating cost, building some reserves, and paying my own salary. Since I can't cut operating cost, I'm cutting the other two. That's okay. It would be better not to have a gap, but it's manageable, and maybe could even be covered by using a different advertiser. * 75% of the income is still from the European and Australian Amazons, so I continue to be very much dependent on one mega company, which has already proven to be an untrustworthy bully in the past. Not good. If they decide to also cut me off, then the disaster is complete. So I need to know the alternatives; need to know what works, which advertisers pay well etc.

Thanks! Feeding these IDs into my spider, I'm also getting Windows 10 S. Very nice. Big update ahead.

Hm, the suggestions for "free" and "trial" seem to be much more obtrusive and restricted than the current "free" version. I really don't want to impose more ads and more restrictions upon the users. The suggestion for the "paid" version is the same that users already get when they contribute (either financially or by translation).

Thanks for the idea. Restricting advertising to key dependent downloads would be an option if that strategy would cover the gap. Currently, not even the video ads and the donations cover the gap, although the situation is much improved compared to resource sharing. The cost of running all this is not restricted to buying keys, although I've invested many hundreds of dollars/euros per year into keys already. Since I'm tax registered, I need an accountant (plus a license for accounting software); I have to pay for a business liability insurance; the server is already quite powerful and expensive, but still getting dangerously close to its limits again (definitely requiring an update this year). Not coming back unless you have an idea how to get about 50% of the users to agree to resource sharing. I used to receive about $0.0003 to $0.0004 per resource donor per day. Not worth bothering about just for a potentially very small number of contributors. I've already thought about that. Researching Facebook and Twitter APIs is on my to do list. I also need to make sure that promising incentives to users for sharing stuff is non against FB's or Twitter's terms. Wasting people's time and not helping my finances. That's a definite "no".

Version 7.35 (30 December 2018): Removed obsolete downloads for Office for Mac 2016/2019; added Window 7 Ultimate Retail.

If I remember right, MS used to provide a tool to convert HTML to EXE during the times of Win XP. I can't remember the name now. It was very simple, but got the job done flawlessly. Shame they stopped supporting it.

I'm researching. With MS ending Win 7 support in about a year's time, the vanilla images might not be available for much longer afterwards. Making more OEM images available would be an option. HP has a download tool, but it's difficult to debug.

Much better solution.

On a machine that has ADK installed, it would be quite easy to do. But we can't really expect that to be the case on a random system... Without ADK, it seems quite a challenge. It's one thing to set a deletion flag in the ISO file table. Adding new files to an ISO is a whole different thing. It would require very deep understanding of the ISO file structure. I'll look into the ISO specifications when I have a bit more time at hand. It would be totally worth it to do, even as a standalone tool. There's currently no free tool that can add files to an ISO (at least none that I could find).

My last three attempts to obtain a Win 7 Ultimate retail version resulted in receiving a counterfeit box with a useless key... With a couple of really awesome donations having come in during the last week, I think I can justify another attempt. If someone knows a trustworthy shop that sells (used) Win 7 boxes at reasonable prices, please let me know. But I'll try sniping one or two of them on eBay as well. So hopefully Win 7 Ult will be back soon.

I understand your point, but I believe you're oversimplifying it in several aspects. It's not that I "want to make money". This is not optional. I have to make money, not only to keep things going, but also to feed a family. I've said it before that I'm not getting rich with my activities. On top of that, I have to recover the money for server cost and Windows/Office licenses. Again, this is not optional. The most requested download has been Win Server 2019. In order to be able to provide the download, I need to buy a retail product key to generate the links. The key costs about 700 to 1000 Euro. I'm listening for suggestions how to be able to fund such investment. Accumulating the proceedings of two years worth of 5% of the users donating idle resources will not do it. (And if one day I add only a single license, there are gonna be many complaints that not all language editions can be provided all the time...) I really am open for ideas and suggestions. Please do share yours. I hope it has become clear that it's not that I'm not chipping in. Although I'm not chipping in on your monthly internet bill, I'm chipping in on other things (time and money). It has to be a give-and-take. Since it didn't develop into a balanced give-and-take by itself, I took the steps that I did. Yes, it does force things on the end user that they don't want, and I don't like doing that. I'd be happy to implement a viable alternative that also satisfies users who have the bandwidth to download a 4.7 GB Windows disk image, but not a 4.7 GB Windows disk image + 0.04 GB video clip. (I did some bandwidth measuring yesterday.) You say users have nothing to do with my dispute with Amazon. I agree only partly. Users have nothing to do directly and actively with the dispute. The users have to do with it indirectly, and it affects them. When YouTube demonetizes a channel, it affects the users. When Patreon deplatforms a channel, it affects the users. (Such as the recent case with Sargon of Akkad. I certainly don't agree with all of his views, and only stumbled across his channel now in the aftermath of his deplatforming, but what's been happening there is a disgrace). The users either have to adapt, or to wave their content goodbye. So is it the users who decide which of the independent suppliers of free software, publishers, content providers etc. survive, or is it the Silicon Valley establishment who decide for the users by demonetizing people at random without grounds? If it's the users who want to decide, then they have to own the fact that they have at least indirectly to do with such disputes. (A politically interested user base like Sargon has, should be easier to convince about this than a bunch of users who just want to download Windows and Office...)

The intended goal is to be able to keep all services up, and not to start shutting individual things down. How about giving you the choice of three options: keep the video player open for two minutes, or donate financially, or donate idle resources? Would that be acceptable? I'm not trying to get rich here, just trying to make a moderate living by providing tons of free stuff to the community (not only this forum and this tool), and covering the cost for server capacity and enough Windows/Office licenses that are required for generating the download links. I tried doing that via inobtrusive "idle resource donation". About 4% to 6% of users chose to do so, whereas 40 to 60% would have been required. Now I understand that not everyone is able to donate idle resources, for example system admins on a company network, or repair shops etc. But I doubt that 94% of users are admins, repair people and similar. Additionally, there have been several reviews of the tool, forum posts and YouTube videos explicitly warning about enabling resource donation claiming that it would harm users' computers. I tried asking users to show their support in my case against Amazon.com by liking and sharing social media posts. Even if only 4% to 6% of users did so, I assume it would become quite difficult for Amazon to ignore this mess. However, a meagre 0.0001% of users have liked the posts I asked them to like, and sharing has been even less. Don't get me wrong. Many users are extremely supportive. They donated idle resources, have sent encouraging emails, and all the financial contributions have been simply amazing. You guys rock! But the sad fact remains, that the majority of users is indifferent. And without a more committed user base, I don't see how the tool can be kept ad free (or de-facto ad free by allowing to close the ad window instantly). As I said before, just one single inobtrusive banner in the side bar, pointing people to buy their licenses on Amazon, would be my preferred model. Should Amazon.com decide to rehabilitate me, within one day there would be a version of the ISO downloader available without any other form of monetization or donation requests. But since I've exhausted all routes of appeal (including a lawsuit), shaming and exposing Amazon.com as the bully they are through a community effort, is one last tiny hope.

If you can only choose x86, then you have clearly downloaded the wrong file.

Version 7.34 (19 December 2018): Bugfix in Office for Mac 2016/2019 link generation; option to close the video player after 2 minutes.

Version 7.33 (19 December 2018): Bugfix in Office 2013/2016/2019 link generation. Version 7.32 (18 December 2018): Added the latest developer and Insider versions up to build 18298; completed Spanish localization.

Here's a new video series that I started. Maybe more videos coming in the future.

Version 7.31 (13 December 2018): Added Office 2019 for Mac build 16.20; added the latest developer and Insider versions up to build 18290; completed Brazilian localization; various small bug fixes.