How to Download Windows Server 2025 ISO: A Step-by-Step Guide for IT Professionals

Are you looking to get your hands on the latest Windows Server 2025 ISO for evaluation or deployment? In this blog post, we’ll walk you through three easy methods to download the Windows Server 2025 ISO: from the Microsoft Evaluation Center, from the M365 Admin Center website, and from the Windows Insider program website. Whether you’re setting up a lab environment or preparing for a production rollout, this guide has you covered.

Where to download Windows Server 2025 installation media

Windows Server 2025 was released to general availability on November 1, 2024. There are several methods and locations you can use to download installation media from the Internet.  Each of the three locations has repercussions on what you ultimately intend to use Windows Server 2025 for. Are you testing it in a lab? Do you have a Microsoft Volume License or Enterprise license agreement to use for production? Or are you looking to test the new ARM64 version? Read on to get all the details.

Microsoft Evaluation Center

If you want to download the evaluation edition (that expires 180 days after installation) of the final, RTM (Release to Manufacturing) version of Windows Server 2025 (The RTM build was minted as 26100.1742), you can visit the Microsoft Evaluation Center to download either the ISO or Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) files. I’ll cover those details in a little while.

Simply choose the language you wish to use.

Microsoft 365 Admin Center

If your organization has any type of Volume License agreement with Microsoft, you or one of your License Administrators should have access to download these files from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center website. (This was transitioned from the Volume License Service Center (VLSC) website, which has since been decommissioned)

• Browse to https://admin.microsoft.com/.
• Log in with appropriate access to view Volume License Products
• Navigate to Billing -> Your products -> Volume licensing (tab on top) -> View downloads and keys.

Based on your agreement and what products you’ve purchased, you’ll find a list of Microsoft software products you can view the Volume License Keys (VLKs) for, KMS keys, and download links.

Be advised, “Classic Microsoft” strikes again. They were able to build this website/UI/interface from scratch, and they managed to make it inefficient to use…

As an example, Windows 11 Enterprise contains 455 separate downloads as of this writing. There are 3 different versions/editions (22H2, 23H2, 24H2), multiple languages, two architectures (x64, ARM64) original RTM downloads, and the latest with the Latest Cumulative Update (LCU) built-in.

Windows Insider Program

The final location to download a legitimate ISO for Windows Server 2025 is the Windows Server Insider Program website. However, as of this writing, the ISO and VHD files are based on Microsoft Server previews of future versions. Currently, a post-release version of Windows Server 2025, not for production use, is available. (The latest build is 26311). You will need to register your Microsoft account or a work or school account in the Insider Program to download the Windows Server vNext preview ISO.

What’s more, Microsoft has rarely if ever explained what these post-RTM builds are. Just looking at the numbers, they would purport to be builds for the next version after 2025 (Windows Server vNext). But, again, idle speculation.

File formats of installation media downloads

There are two main file formats for installation media of Windows. ISO and VHD. I’ll go into further detail in a moment.

As a special tip – you’ll have several options when installing with this media. During Windows Setup, you’ll have to choose an installation option – the Desktop Experience (full graphical GUI), or the Server Core (Nearly no GUI, only a command prompt/PowerShell shell – designed for remote administration) option.

If you choose the Desktop Experience, you’ll have access to Server Management Tools, Windows Admin Center, a full GUI, all Server Roles, and even Azure Arc. When choosing Server Core you’ll still get the core components of Windows Server but in a smaller installation. Your local graphical user interface is severely limited.

You also will choose between standard edition and the datacenter edition. These are nearly identical – however, the datacenter edition includes unlimited virtualization, Storage Spaces Direct, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Shielded Virtual Machines, and Hotpatching.

ISO

The ISO format (International Organization for Standardization), often referred to as an ISO image, is a single file that contains the complete contents of an install CD, DVD, or other optical disc. It’s commonly used to distribute large files, like operating systems because it can be easily downloaded and either copied to a USB stick or mounted in virtualization software.

VHD

A VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) file is a single file that represents the contents of a virtual hard disk drive. Hyper-V uses this format to save and store the contents of virtual machines. Each VHD file represents a physical hard drive.

Using an ISO file

After you’ve downloaded your ISO file, you can mount it in the Hyper-V Manager console by adding a SCSI Controller->DVD Drive and then browsing to the downloaded file.

This shows the virtual machine’s DVD drive will have the evaluation version of Windows Server 2025 available to boot from.

Using a VHD(X) file

A faster method is to use a VHD file because this file contains Windows Server 2025 already installed. If you were to install Windows Server 2025 on a server, pull the hard drive out, and duplicate it, you’d have this VHD file.

In Hyper-V, you can create a new virtual machine and instead of letting it create a new virtual hard disk, browse to this VHD file. Let me show you.

I’ve downloaded the Windows Server 2025 VHDX file from the evaluation center website. Here I will use it when creating a new virtual machine.

On the ‘Connect Virtual Hard Disk‘ screen, I chose the middle option – ‘Use an existing virtual hard disk‘ and browsed to the 10.9 GB VHDX file I downloaded. After I finish creating my VM, instead of needing to install Windows Server, I just fire it up!

Piece of cake. Just finish the quick OOBE (Out of Box Experience), accept the licensing agreement, create the local Administrator password and we’re done.

Download for ARM (ARM64)

As of this writing, Microsoft has not released an official ISO or VHD download of the ARM64 version of Windows Server 2025. The main unofficial option is to visit the UUPDUMP website and search for it there.

This is a community-driven (you could say open source) website that contains scripts that mimic the Windows Update system in Windows to download the same actual bits and assemble them into an ISO. However…

…I must warn you, that these downloads are not supported by anyone, much less Microsoft. If you are curious, have appropriate virtualization software, and will accept the risks, you can download Windows Server vNext (2025) Build 26311 in the ARM64 architecture from that website (as of this writing).

How to Install Windows Server 2025

How to install Windows Server 2025 explains how to do an in-place upgrade, the process is very similar to using an ISO file to install the operating system.

Thank you for reading and leave a comment or question below.