Microsoft has taken several actions to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine since March this year when it announced that it was suspending sales of its new products in the country. This was followed earlier this month with news that the software giant was scaling back operations in Russia, which resulted in hundreds of Microsoft workers losing their jobs. Now, those actions are continuing further as Microsoft has pulled the ability to download Windows 10 and Windows 11 from internet users in Russia.
The news of this was first announced by Russian news agency TASS who put messages out across its Telegram channels explaining what had happened. Attempting to download Windows 10 or 11 in Russia leads to a 404 file not found error. This news has since been confirmed by other news outlets including Bleeping Computer.
Bleeping Computer reports that the error message above is what shows whenever you attempt to download the Windows 11 ISO in Russia. There is further bad news for Russians looking to get around this new ban as although the Media Creation tool may seem to work at first, going down that route to download and install Windows 11 in Russia will eventually fail too.
As of yet, Microsoft hasn’t made any particular announcements about this move, so we don’t know for sure whether this a part of a concerted anti-war effort or if it is merely the result of a technical glitch. We will have to wait and see.
Either way, this is bad news for people in Russia who no longer have access to Microsoft’s flagship operating system. However, there may be some hope as Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development has said that there is a good chance that using a decent VPN service could bypass these restrictions.
If you would like to learn more about VPNs, you should check out our guide to the best VPNs for Chrome.
