Source: Microsoft Download Portals Overview
Microsoft is not only maintaining one public download repository on the Internet but several. Many of these download sites are offering downloads for a specific Microsoft product or group of users. Some are accessible from within Microsoft products while others are only accessible from a web browser. This makes it rather complicated to create an overview of those download sites. The benefit of maintaining such a list is that these download sites do not only contain downloads for Microsoft computer software programs but also patches, updates, beta software and even prototype software that might only be available for a limited amount of time before it is removed from the servers.
The following overview will list the major Microsoft download portals (Keep in mind that these link to the English language portals):
Microsoft is not only maintaining one public download repository on the Internet but several. Many of these download sites are offering downloads for a specific Microsoft product or group of users. Some are accessible from within Microsoft products while others are only accessible from a web browser. This makes it rather complicated to create an overview of those download sites. The benefit of maintaining such a list is that these download sites do not only contain downloads for Microsoft computer software programs but also patches, updates, beta software and even prototype software that might only be available for a limited amount of time before it is removed from the servers.
The following overview will list the major Microsoft download portals (Keep in mind that these link to the English language portals):