How big is Windows 10? If that is the question that landed you on this page, then you are on the right page. I will tell you how big Windows 10 is as well as why it must be that big.
Whether you are tech-savvy or just an average Windows user, there may be a point in time when you might want to know the size of Windows 10. Knowing this helps you estimate how much data bundle you need to download a Windows 10 ISO image or how much space you need on your Pendrive or storage device to copy one.
Windows Operating Systems
The Microsoft Windows OS or simply Windows as most of us call it is a series of computer operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft.
The history of Microsoft Windows has dated as far back as 1985 when the first ever Windows OS known as Windows 1.0 Was released. Some major releases to this operating system include Windows 3x, Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 10, and the latest of them as of the time of this article is Windows 11.
The image above shows the Microsoft Windows family tree with all the respective release dates. All the above Microsoft Windows versions were designed to work on different devices. But the major users of these OS use it on desktop and laptop computers.
How big is Windows 10?
The size of the Windows 10 ISO image is approximately 3.9GB for 32-bit and 5.5GB for 64-bit. However, this might not be the size for the Windows ISO image depending on where you download it.
I will not recommend you download Windows 10 ISO images from any other source apart from the official Microsoft website. Most of the other websites do modify the files to reduce the size or add new features to make it even larger than the original size.
If you want to download the Windows 10 operating system, I recommend you follow the procedure in our previous article on How to download ISO for Windows 10. We have a detailed procedure that will help you download the Windows 10 iso image in no time.
Why is Windows this big?
There are so many reasons why the Windows operating system is this big. I will point out a few reasons why it is like that below.
1. Evolution
Computers have evolved from the early 80s till now. We no longer have Floppy or Zip drives that are only a few Megabytes in size. These days, even Terabytes of storage space can be fully occupied by just a couple of files.
The more evolved the computers get, the more the demand for more codes and files to help their new features function properly.
The Windows 1.0 iso image file was less than 2MB in size.
2. Operating System Content
The Windows Operating System is this big because of its contents. The stock wallpapers, images, and applications contribute a lot to the size of the ISO image file.
We now have High Definition (HD) displays which means we need HD wallpapers as stock wallpapers for the Windows Operating System.
There are also new stock applications that were not part of the earlier versions of the Windows Operating System. These applications also add up to the size.
What you must know is the fact that the more features the operating system has, the larger the size will be. You must also know that everything is evolving including the codes and frameworks used by the computer. All these things will add significant size to the already existing size.