Windows 10 build?

I hope this is in the right forum area, if not I apologize ahead of time.

I have several downloaded Windows 10 ISO's and what I like to know (so I can organize better) is how I can tell which build each ISO is without installing the system. I right mouse click and check properties, but nothing there.

For example, the latest download from Microsoft is build 18363.592. I have three ISO's for 1909 so I want to know which one is which. I believe one of the three is 18363.476, but not sure.

Anyways, I hope this will be easy.

Thank you

AirPower4ever said:

I have several downloaded Windows 10 ISO's and what I like to know (so I can organize better) is how I can tell which build each ISO is without installing the system.

There's a tutorial for that....
See Full Details about a Windows 10 ISO file

sportsfan148 said:

Why do you keep the older versions of Windows 10?

I've kept all versions, more for reference than actual use though. I have used the original 1507 build 10240 media to upgrade W7 to the first release of W10, then tested upgrading that directly to the latest version skipping all the intervening versions (and yes, it works).

I thought that using them as installation media wouldnt work now as each build has an end date when its no longer supported as far as Im aware

No, there's no enforced cut-off date coded into the install media. End of support doesn't stop you using them for a clean install or to upgrade a W7/8 PC. It doesn't even stop their windows update working, though of course they will only update themselves as far as their final CU before support ended.

Bree said:

I've kept all versions, more for reference than actual use though. I have used the original 1507 build 10240 media to upgrade W7 to the first release of W10, then tested upgrading that directly to the latest version skipping all the intervening versions (and yes, it works).



No, there's no enforced cut-off date coded into the install media. End of support doesn't stop you using them for a clean install or to upgrade a W7/8 PC. It doesn't even stop their windows update working, though of course they will only update themselves as far as their final CU before support ended.

Thanks for the info mate. So you could actually use any of the older iso versions to clean install Windows 10 and it will still bring you right up to date to the latest 1909 version. Does that mean that its never really an absolute necessity to download the latest version of the Media Creation Tool in order to get the very latest iso when you wish to do a clean installation of Windows 10? You could just dig out one of your older iso versions/builds and use that instead. Out of interest what are the Pros and Cons of doing that?

sportsfan148 said:

Thanks for the info mate. So you could actually use any of the older iso versions to clean install Windows 10 and it will still bring you right up to date to the latest 1909 version....

First it would update you to the last CU for the version you installed, then it would (depending on how old the version you installed) either insist on automatically upgrading to 1909, or offer it as an optional upgrade.

Does that mean that its never really an absolute necessity to download the latest version of the Media Creation Tool in order to get the very latest iso when you wish to do a clean installation of Windows 10? You could just dig out one of your older iso versions/builds and use that instead. Out of interest what are the Pros and Cons of doing that?

There are actually two questions there.

1) Should you use the install media for the latest version? Yes, after installing 1809 or earlier it would have to go through a full upgrade to get you to 1909. This takes as long as the initial install and creates a Windows.old folder, wasting your time and disk space.

2) Do you need the latest MCT? Actually, no. Any MCT from 1809 onwards will download a Products.xml from the update servers and make media for whatever that says is the latest version of W10. It does no harm to download a new MCT but (so far) it's not strictly necessary. Searching back through previous post of mine I see we've had this conversation before......

Up to and including the 1607 MCT the products details were hard-coded into the MCT. Any MCT from the original 10240 pair (one for x86, another for x64), through 1511 and 1607 will still, to this day, build the ISO for their respective versions.

Then with 1703 it seems that Products.xml was introduced. For the 1703, 1709 and 1803 MCTs they will check, then tell you they aren't the latest version and you should download a newer one.

From 1809 onwards the MCT seems happy to work with whatever the current Products.xml tells it to make.

Media Creation Tool updated - post #14